Memory changes as a person matures.

The recollections of an older man are different from those of a younger man. What seemed vital at forty may lose its significance at seventy. We manufacture stories, after all, from the fleeting sensory material that bombards us at every instant, a fragmented series of pictures, conversations, odors, and the touch of things and people. We delete most of it to live with some semblance of order, and the reshuffling of memory goes on until we die.

Great books are the ones that are urgent, life-changing, the ones that crack open the reader’s skull and heart.

Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting.

That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.

Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.

Men generally do not see women as competition.