I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all.

And we'd had this stupid scene on the street, and even that was kind of cool, because sometimes it's moments like that, real complicated moments, absorbing moments, that make you realize that even hard times have things in them that make you feel alive.

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.

Reciprocation was a pretty powerful stimulant to the imagination.