“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”

If you want to be a writer, you don’t want to live in a comfortable place.

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 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.

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.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

He is many things – dangerous and devious, cunning and deadly, a good friend and an implacable enemy – but he comes from an age when a man’s word was indeed precious.

Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.

It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.

Wait. Look. Notice. If you keep those three words in mind, you just might survive the next few days.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security.

Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.