My brain is sending poison to my heart.

I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.

Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule.

Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else's version of themselves--to anyone else's version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!

Among adults – and among orphans – Wilbur Larch noted that delirious happiness was rare.

All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.