...I knew in the end the guilt of one side did not prove the innocence of the other.

Telling my story was supposed to be a good thing but it had just made everything worse.

I was so tired of his being even-keeled in the face of all that was upsetting and ugly and illogical.

Some people say the Balkans is just inherently violent. That we have to fight a war every fifty years.""I hope that's not true", I said.

The realization that my parents, too, felt pain and fear frightened me more than any strangers could.

Music, I'd heard him say, was like dessert. He could live without it, but life just wasn't as good.

I'd studied English since the first grade but considered it a murky language, one whose grammar seemed to have been made up on the fly

The hope is indeed that some will experience and believe: The purpose of a number of spiritual gurus is to demonstrate to God-fearing men faux spirituality.

I'm a live wire in a dead world.

He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever - was write novels.

When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are tendered conscious.

I don't believe in luck. When I am diligent, my luck is generally good. When I am lax, my invariable turns bad.

We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.

You know, I think this is the first time we've ever done anything normal together.

The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.

The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing.