Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.

If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.

I feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known.

Grant us safe lodging, and holy rest,” Mrs. Grogan was saying, “and peace at last.” Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the Saint of St. Cloud’s, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he’d come a long way and still had a long way to go.

wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.

Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.

I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.