It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake.

I’d spent my whole life waiting to awake on an ordinary morning in the town that was destined to be my home, in the arms of the woman I was destined to love, knowing the people and doing the work that would make up the changing but essentially invariable landscape of my particular destiny.

When I'm writing solitude feels very good. But when I'm not writing it feels lonely... Having a big family solves that problem.

If children are not permitted-not taught-to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world...?

She was a natural blonde, with delicate hands and feet, and in her youthful photographs one saw a girl with mocking eyes and a tragic smile, the course of whose life would conspire in time to transpose that pair of adjectives.

The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low.

Forget about what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to.