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.

I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy.

…there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.

When I was still in prep school - 14, 15 - I started keeping notebooks, journals. I started writing, almost like landscape drawing or life drawing. I never kept a diary, I never wrote about my day and what happened to me, but I described things.

The lie, of course, is more interesting.

People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.

… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign; it is at least a form of being human.