What good are insights? They only make things worse.

When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself.

I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?

Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.