“We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.”

I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.

Kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.

The stories themselves haunt, they stick around, they linger, inhabiting a little corner of the reader’s brain and resurfacing to evoke mystery or sadness or longing.

I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son.

The wine glasses are empty except for that one undrinkable red spot at the bottom.

Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to write.

But the sky is interesting, it changes all the time.

I could feel the tears beginning to collect in my throat again, but I pushed them apart, away from each other. Tears are only a threat in groups.

If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness-cry and then walk-but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order.

She is the first gesture that creates a quiet that is full enough to make the baby sleep. My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen.

That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.

The most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.

Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles.

I didn’t mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side.

It’s such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.

Listen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can’t fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows.

Natural strength is what we receive from the hand of God as Creator. Spiritual strength is what we receive from God in grace.

I have received new life; because the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, I have received the outpoured Spirit. All is because of Him; nothing is because of me.

Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.

Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand.

In 2013, I changed to left-hand low, or cross-handed. And it’s helped a lot. At the time, the reason I switched was just a lot of inconsistency with putting. I was either making a lot of putts, or I was missing a lot of putts.

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you’ve fallen into good hands – someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have done and what we might have been on the one hand, and the thing we have made and the things we have made of ourselves on the other.