“You wake up in this here world, my sweet li'l mister, you got to wake up tough. You go out that front door tough of a mornin' and you stay tough 'til lights outhave you learned that?”

“The old man had been tanned by the light of too many beer signs, and it just goes to show that you cant live on three packs of Chesterfields and a fifth of bourbon a day without starting to drift f...”

“I think all regions have had their peculiarities of speech rounded off by television, radio, and people travel so much more now.”

“I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer.”

“When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly.”

“I'm very attracted to poetry for all the reasons someone likes poetry. The notion of compression seems to fit my personality.”

“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.”

“There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone.”

“I was relying on youth be loyal to the specific variety of compromise and unhappiness, which our hard-won marriage represents.”

“It is not until an act occurs within the landscape of the past and future that it is a human act. Loyalty, which asserts the continuity of past and future, binding time into a whole, is the root of...”

“Life at the edge of the world, it was felt, could go on forever.”

“I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.”

“Tradition has made women cowardly.”