The temptation is to stay inside; to subside into the kind of recluse whom neighborhood children regard with derision and little awe; to let the hedges and weeds grow up, to allow the doors to rust shut, to lie on my bed in some gown-shaped garment and let my hair lengthens and spread out over the pillow and my fingernails to sprout into claws, while candle wax drips onto the carpet. But long ago I made a choice between classicism and romanticism. I prefer to be upright and contained—an urn in daylight.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.

Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the mind.

Although from you I far must roam, do not be broken hearted. We two, who in the souls are one, are never truly parted.

It made him feel invisible—not that he wanted to feel anything else.

God is not the voice in the whirlwind, God is the whirlwind.

I suppose it's everyone's fate to be reduced to quaintness by those younger than themselves.