“I had this theory. It was based loosely on the unremarkable observation that the old are always looking back with longing while the young, with the same longing, look ahead. One man remembers what ...”

“The girl who climbed up the water tower. We would have counted her an accident until the medical examiner found breaks and fractures from her hips to her heels. "You fall head first," he said. "Fee...”

“Once she even successfully argued on behalf of my older brother, Dan, getting a BBGun, a weapon which he promptly turned against his younger siblings, outfitting us in helmet and leather jacket and...”

“It hurts so bad that I cannot save him, protect him, keep him out of harm's way, shield him from pain. What good are fathers if not for these things?”

“The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish.”

“Well the themes for me were and remain sex and love and grief and death - the things that make us and undo us, create and destroy, how we breed and disappear and the emotional context that surround...”

“I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.”

“If the devil is sending you thoughts of fear, resist him, stop the thoughts”

“Perhaps living in fear can drive all devils out of a person.”

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

“We limit ourselves and God who wants to work through us”

“God can only work through those who have totally identified themselves with His will and purpose”