“How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are dee...”

“What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.”

“It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when...”

“Time and death: It's the ultimate vision of an artist at the end of everything. It's just what's there. It was not something I planned to do.”

“How language is webbed in the senses. Out of sand-blazed brilliance into quirky minds such as his, into touch, taste and fragrance. He thought he'd linger just a bit longer, let the bath take total...”

“Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself ...”

“Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.”

“Mistakes? That's why they put erasers on pencils.”

“The features of character are carved out of adversity.”

“Sacrifice: That's what makes our mosaic so beautiful and rich.”

“The blazing sun beat down on the concrete of the museum's front yard- Reverend Ryu Yosop felt as if the heat were sucking up all the moisture in his brain and heart. What different colors he and hi...”

“It comes down to this: we're pieces of equipmentTo be counted and signed for. On occasion some of us break down,And those parts which can't be salvagedAre replaced with other GI parts, that's all.”