Adolescence-is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?

I have no respect for the right-to-life position, though I have every respect for an individual who says, "I could never have that procedure, I could never see a film or read a book about that procedure." It doesn't bother me if people feel that way.

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.

The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.

So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.

It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard, ..., because you often feel like interfering -you want to be the one who makes the plans.

...I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next door to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace.