And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland.

There are a great many sins in this world, none of them original.

My God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about -- acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind.

I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.

Odd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.

I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.