I know your mother lives in your head - almost everyone's mother does, I guess - but you can't let her have her way on this one

Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.

Any statement beginning with the words 'In truth' is almost always a lie.

It's not the pain I'm afraid of; I know about the pain. What I'm afraid of is the end of this small, sweet dream.

I never have a thematic intention at the outset.

And if there are no cars or planes, and if no one’s Uncle John is out in the wood lot west of town banging away at a quail or pheasant; if the only sound is the slow beat of your own heart, you can hear another sound, and that is the sound of life winding down to its cyclic close, waiting for the first winter snow to perform last rites.

You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down.