There are no moments more painful for a parent than those in which you contemplate your child's perfect innocence of some imminent pain, misfortune, or sorrow. That innocence (like every kind of innocence children have) is rooted in their trust of you, one that you will shortly be obliged to betray; whether it is fair or not, whether you can help it or not, you are always the ultimate guarantor or destroyer of that innocence.
Michael ChabonWhen I finish a first draft, it's always just as much of a mess as it's always been. I still make the same mistakes every time.
Michael ChabonA delicate, inexorable lattice of inferences began to assemble themselves, like a crystal, in the old man's mind, shivering, catching the light in glints and surmises.
Michael Chabon. . .I really ought to have recognized it for what it was and, perhaps, to have stopped right there - for it was nostalgia, and what inspires nostalgia has been dead a long time
Michael ChabonA story begins with this nebulous feeling thatโs hard to get a hold of and youโre testing your feelings and assumptions, testing what you believe. They end up turning into keepsakes and mementos โlike amber in which a memory gets trapped.
Michael Chabon