“If you can't give it all you've got, don't bother.”

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“There's something very enticing about an empty bench under a tree. And if it's facing a river, that's the bench for me.”

“I know I can't own a hilltop, a meadow, or a mountainside. But keeping it a secret somehow makes it mine.”

“When I trust someone I do it without doubt or fear or reservation. And then I work on a Plan B.”

“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,...”

“July 24, 6:03 A.M.The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff...Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for...”

“A book is a suicide postponed.”

“How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?”