He had no idea of how long his life would one day seem to have gone on; how daily present the absence of love would come to feel. “Just watch me,” he said.

I love the internet and it has been incredibly useful and I have made discoveries that have been immeasurably crucial to my work- things I don’t know how I ever would have found out otherwise, that are perfect, just what I need for whatever I’m doing.

That's the best thing about writing, when you're in that zone, you're porous, ready to absorb the solution.

... and because it was a drunken perception, it was perfect, entire, and lasted about half a second.

... But he believed that every great love was in some measure a terrible mistake.

The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day.

It never takes longer than a few minutes, when they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That's what a family is. Also the storm at sea, the ship, and the unknown shore. And the hats and the whiskey stills that you make out of bamboo and coconuts. And the fire that you light to keep away the beasts.