“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...”

“He better call Becky with the good hair.”

“THE WISER I GET....THE LESS I SPEAK, THE MORE I THINK AND THE MORE THOUGHTFUL MY WORDS BECOME"~QWANA M. "BABYGIRL" REYNOLDS-FRASIER”

“NEVER LIVE A LIE BECAUSE"THEY"WON'T ACCEPT YOUR TRUTH!”

“She wasnt exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. All she knew for sure was that right here and now, she was falling hard and she could only pray that he was feeling the same way.”

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

“Sometimes you break your heart in the right way, if you know what I mean.”