There are men I could spend eternity with. But not this life.

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

It's all so beautiful . . . the spring . . . and books and music and fires. . . . Why aren't they enough?

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

Only Christ could have brought us all together, in this place, doing such absurd but necessary things.

The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.