It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.

This is what self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.

when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.

but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.

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

The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.