“I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.”

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn’t get–and never would get.

We have this huge discourse on family in this country, but no one deconstructs it the same way. People talk about “the American family.” The right wing has this thing – Focus on the Family. What the hell is that?

The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.

I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance – and I come by this naturally, or I think I do – I am a very good judge of character.

But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.

I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.

I don’t want to just discuss the issues – I want family to be a real part of the character of the novels I write, and I don’t like to write things that feel like issue books.

I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.

You are thirst and thirst is all I know

I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.

Absent parents aren’t abusive per se. They’re neglectful. They love in a very imperfect way. There are parents like that, and they do love their daughters and sons, but they’re not parents in the way that we might think of it.

Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes.

Water was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.

I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.

I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.

In America, people really love movies here and it’s part of the culture. Even in Germany, still sometimes, the theater is always bigger than movies. It’s more art. Movies are more popcorn. Here, movies are really an art form.

It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born..

You know, sometimes I feel like I walk around with a target on my back with the films I make.

Something doesn’t look right,” vee said. “is the tire supposed to look like that?” i banged my head against the nearest tree trunk. “so we’ve got a flat,” vee said. “what now?

Sometimes if you have a difficult decisin to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.

Tis sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.

Yes, you know sometimes, we started out thinking out how strange our painting was next to normal painting, which was anything expressionist.