He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.

Anyone who knows me well must understand and be sympathetic to my genuine need to be my own greatest hero. It is not a flaw of character; it is a catastrophe.

My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.

College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts.

I don't believe in happy families.

... the wing of a fly is proof enough of the existence of God for me.

...when the words pour out of you just right, you understand that these sentences are all part of a river flowing out of your own distant, hidden ranges, and all words become the dissolving snow that feeds your mountain streams forever. The language locks itself in the icy slopes of our own high passes, and it is up to us, the writers, to melt the glaciers within us. When these glaciers break off, we get to call them novels, the changelings of our burning spirits, our life's work.