So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn't matter anymore, forever after

Reading-not occasionally, not only on vacation but everyday-gives me nourishment and enlarges my life in mysterious and essential ways.

We all - in the end - die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

He was a man too busy to flush toilets.

Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.

In every person's face, there is one place that seems to express them most accurately. With my grandmother, you always looked at her mouth.

The first person besides my mother who believed in me was a man whose last name I never knew. He was my boss, the manager of Swenson's Ice Cream shop.