“Isn’t it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we’re doing what we’re doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?”

I never confused what I had with what I was.

Not responding is a response – we are equally responsible for what we don’t do.

The world is a big place,” he said, “but so is the inside of an apartment!

I was more alone than if I had been alone.

This is love, she thought, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?

I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.

I dreamt four nights ago of clock hands descending from the universe like rain, of the moon as a green eye, of mirrors and insects, of a love that never withdrew. It was not the feeling of completeness that I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

I’d rather somebody hate what I do than be indifferent to it.

Also, I designed a pretty fascinating bracelet, where you put a rubber band around your favorite book of poems for a year, and then you take it off and wear it.

I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.

I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.

Every night before putting her to sleep, Yankel counts her ribs, as if one might have disappeared in the course of the day and become the seed and soil for some new companion to steal her away from him.

I woke up once in the middle of the night, and Buckminster’s paws were on my eyelids. He must have been feeling my nightmares.

I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.

The hardest part of writing is not to get the ideas but to remember, why it is important to get them.

She extended a hand that I didn’t know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.

If I don’t have cereal on the bus, I’m going to be really upset.

I’ve never had a scandal, but I don’t know if that’s so much because I’m perfect, or because people aren’t caring enough yet. Give it some time. I’ll probably be very upset, but it’s a part of the gig.

I’m tortured because I care. I’m always upset about not doing things as good as I think I could have because I care.

People are rightfully upset about Wall Street abuses and excess.

Now I don’t get upset by unpleasant things, I don’t play the victim, and I’m always ready to come to terms with life.

You can say whatever you want about me, I’m not really bothered. But when it starts to upset people I care about or I hear about it from my mum, then that’s a problem.

Somebody’s upset with every movie.

You have to shift yourself into the reality where your fear doesn’t upset you.