“I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.”

“Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.”

“Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may b...”

“I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.”

“What do you mean by sound government?'Good public order, no corruption in high places, freedom from fear and war and crime, a reasonably equitable distribution of wealth and resources, concern for ...”

“It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all to soon, the very words "justice," "compas...”

“Say youll marry me when I come back or, before God, I wont go. Ill stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so youll have...”

“He hated being filled with terror. It was embarrassing.”

“I havent felt the full weightof the world on my shoulders,and I havent experienceda fraction of the painand embarrassment Ive put out into this great bigwhite world.”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”

“We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma ...”

“If only it were possible to love without injury fidelity isnt enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body...”

“She looks at the swings, and I can see shes imagining what theyd look like if the kids werent there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away,...”