“I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out. ”

“The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how de...”

“I knew what he felt. The huge buoyant air sack of love that filled his body had just exploded and the collapse was devastating.”

“Nudity and explicit sex are far more easily available now than are clear images of death. The quasi-violence of movies and television dwells on the lively acts of killing flying kicks, roaring wea...”

“I know that some of the finest writing I've ever read has been sports writing, whatever the topic was, whatever the sport they were writing about. It seems to be an area where people are allowed a ...”

“Prior to penicillin and medical research, death was an everyday occurrence. It was intimate.”

“A grit mind strengthens all of your strengths.”

“...grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned...”

“You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.”

“Nobody works better under pressure. They just work faster.”

“Youth, with all its accompanying risks, humiliations, and uncertainties, the pressure to do it all before its too late.”

“We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?”

“After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used ...”

“He realized that when he had been afraid to change he had been holding on to the illusion of Old Cheese that was no longer there”

“Where to start?Everything cracks and shakes,The air trembles with similes,No one world's better than another;the earth moans with metaphors.”