What do any of us really know about love?

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

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you're going to do a good job with it.

Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.

But he stays by the window, remembering that life. They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had come, while everything else—the cold and where he'd go in it—was outside, for a while anyway.