“You are so intense. Like a storm. It's shocking how intense you are.”

“It was always a relief when she came home to him. Like water or food. Like music or that moment when you cut yourself with a knife and squeeze the skin and no blood oozes out.”

“I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands.”

“What sexual preference do you hope she has? Happiness. Isnt that cool?”

“My mother says that pain is hidden in everyone you see. She says try to imagine it like big bunches of flowers that everyone is carrying around with them. Think of your pain like a big bunch of red...”

“This was not a fearie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful.”

“There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywher...”

“Cecile was teaching in Berkeley and I was [at Livermore]. He probably had, could have had, some influence on Teller, [for] Teller was quite generous in allowing me one whole semester off to be at B...”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”