“My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.”

But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think?

It was a fleeting statement, one I didn’t think she’d hold on to; after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us.

And the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?

That at the same time of this very intimate act of concentrating so carefully on the details of our mother’s palm and fingertips.

But I loved George in part because he believed me; because if I stood in a cold, plain room and yelled FIRE, he would walk over and ask me why.

To see someone you love, in a bad setting, is one of the great barometers of gratitude.

We’re all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there’s too much thought and not enough heart.

Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped.

As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake.

You can ruin anything if you focus at it.

I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food I could because my clothes would be staying on.

I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q…

It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

I knew if I ate anything of hers again, it would lkely tell me the same message: help me,

It seemed to happen in springs, the revealing of things.

I am not happy, help me — like a message in a bottle sent in each meal to the eater, and I got it. I got the message.

A good day for Barack Obama is anytime the dominant topic of discussion is anything but the economy.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do this way or that way to change anything.

Anytime an artist puts your name in a song, it’s unbelievable. It never gets old.

Man, anytime the ball goes through the basket. It doesn’t matter if it’s a jumper or a drive.

Anytime you have an opportunity as an actor to really grow along with your character, I think thats a real gift.

Anytime you’ve got an opportunity to play for your country and win a gold medal,

I think anytime you play somebody on a yearly basis, you develop a history for what they like to do.

I can’t dwell on the past, that I haven’t won a lot, but anytime I didn’t play good was mainly because I didn’t putt very good.