When you find out who you are, you will no longer be innocent. That will be sad for others to see. All that knowledge will show on your face and change it. But sad only for others, not for yourself. You will feel you have a kind of wisdom, very mistaken, but a mistake of some power to you and so you will sadly treasure it and grow it.

You are unhappy because you believe in such a thing as happy.

Everything one reads is nourishment of some sort - good food or junk food - and one assumes it all goes in and has its way with your brain cells.

You chose love like a belief, a faith, a place, a box for one's heart to knock against like a spook in the house.

I count too heavily on birthdays, though I know I shouldn't. Inevitably I begin to assess my life by them, figure out how I'm doing by how many people remember; it's like the old fantasy of attending your own funeral: You get to see who your friends are, get to see who shows up.

Love is a fever," she said. "And when you come out of it you'll discover whether you've been lucky - or not.

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension.