I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.

Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week--a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards.

You can’t kill history. You can’t shoot it with a bullet and watch it recede into whatever lies outside of memory. History is tougher than that—if it’s going to die, it has to die on its own

You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sins, you know, and cry tears while doing it that are genuine as any.

I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature.

Routine is worry's sly assassin.