“You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and b...”

“So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, literary reading and thinking? I would argue this is a person whos trying to see things for what they are. Whos int...”

“Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And...”

“...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near t...”

“As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory.”

“Ultimately, culture, secular and otherwise, is a collection of survival strategies. The things that look like decorationpoetry, novels, music, dancingif you strip away all the layers, are mechanism...”

“...Nature has its unexpected and unappreciated mercies.”

“Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when its dark”

“She kissed their knife marred bodies, for every act of war has, at its heart, an act of mercy.”

“Don't Run For Success, Practice Perfection.”

“Spontaneity is great when the opportunity is there, but what I'm really saying is you need to trust yourself. Instead of checking and rechecking your camera and the lighting and everything else, ju...”

“What she aspired to was a kind of delirious perfection. What Lilia wanted was to travel, but not only that; she wanted to be a citizen of everywhere, free-wheeling and capable of instant flight.”

“Public officials insult our intelligence and our goodwill when they paint rosy pictures about budgets, jobs, bipartisanship, and transparency, and alter their positions on issues simply to keep col...”

“The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.”