Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

Love's action. It isn't talk and it never has been.

A family is one of nature's solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.

…Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak—and then as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us…Each of us would remember that all during our lives. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set, and I would go back in my imagination, and return to where happiness seemed so easy to touch.

My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood.

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.