Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow. I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless.

Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?

Every novel is-at the beginning-the same opening of a door onto a completely unknown space.

If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.