“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 ...”

“'The Iliad' includes some snappy sports reporting, and writers ever since have been probing athletes for signifiers, for metaphor amped by grit under pressure.”

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized ...”

“She had seen it done. Wherever they glittered in the afterlife flying among the high rafters of heaven, swimming with her mother in an undersea cave she hoped the tigers had known it, and roared.”

“But this dagger this was her first. Her favorite. The same one that had sliced off the boys toe on the beach and sent it rolling through the sand.”

“All lies, freckled vows, crying-weeping on your toesExpected jelly beans gusto, got yourself a life imperfectoToo good a gal, too arrogant a galToo independent, too in need of ChanelTook a careless...”

“And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.”

“Breakfast isn't breakfast without breakfast.”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”