Of all the conditions we experience, solitude is perhaps the most misunderstood.

Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.

You didn’t understand what he was saying, until he kissed you. It was a kiss of such complicity, of such uncomplicated sympathy, that you felt for the first time not alone in your suffering.

I'll tell you this, lad: A tattoo says more of a fellow looking at it than it can do of the man who's got it on his back.

People went through life like well handled jugs, collecting chips and scrapes and stains from wear and tear, from holding and pouring life.

All innocent mechanisms are muddied up with experience. Children become less and less translucent. Layers of guile and suspicion grow. It's the law of paternal disenchantments.

I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power.