Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

In fact, mistakes are life's way of teaching us the right way to do things.

No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else.

My old man tried to force on me a notion of what it was to be a 'man.' And it destroyed my dad.

Don't go in and tell somebody else how to run their business.

To be normal is the ultimate aim of the unsuccessful.

Love is an indescribable sensation - perhaps a conviction, a sense of certitude.

With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem.

The only thing you can never change is your values.

If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable - and this is why we are the enemies of the State.

The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.