You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.

In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you.

Dan suggested to Owen and me that we were better off to not involve ourselves with Hester. How true! But how we wanted to be involved in the thrilling real-life sleaziness that we suspected Hester was in the thick-of. We were in a phase, through television and the movies, of living only vicariously. Even faintly sordid silliness excited us if it put us in contact with love.

When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.

Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.

Life is serious but art is fun!

And Father said, “There are no happy endings.” “Right!” cried Iowa Bob – an odd mixture of exuberance and stoicism in his cracked voice. “Death is horrible, final, and frequently premature,” Coach Bob declared. “So what?” my father said. “Right!” cried Iowa Bob. “That’s the point: So what?” Thus the family maxim was that an unhappy ending did not undermine a rich and energetic life. This was based on the belief that there were no happy endings.