Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else.

For as spiritual as some people think my books are, I've never really dealt with religious things.

The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby's birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway - most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing.

People don’t die because of loyalty.” They don’t?” She smiled. “Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death?” Eddie shrugged. Better,” she said, “to be loyal to one another.

Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted.

If we knew what comes next, we never would have worried.

People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.