“... the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.”

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. It's a plague. It's like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and someone just keep pulling it and pulling it."STATE OF WONDER”

“I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed...”

“Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”

“The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.”

“It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in ...”

“He was the toast to her butter.”

“Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the comp...”

“...accustomed like the white blackbird to the loneliness of eccentricity yet never quite reconciled to it, they found in each other's oddness a most comforting compatibility.”

“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”

“Her question was clear-Father, where does the Loss reside?In the sighs?Cheeks with tears wiped?A lost appetite?Owning a room confined?Or in the smiles all falsified?Thus, the Father decide,It is no...”

“Find time for a private conversation with your creator so that you can ask Him about the purpose of your existence”

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”