The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction.

The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.

I write about what I know; and I write about things that are new to me, and that I didn't know before.

The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own.

Long ago, long ago. The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.

There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.

There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

We have to admire the world for not ending on us.

It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful.

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.

Surround yourself with what matters.

The key to opening the secret of humanity is to love and understand the beauty of it.

Greatness is measured by those who like to think. Success is measured by those who like to receive.

Emily Gannett is tireless. I know this because I have traded emails with her at 2 A.M. only to later wake blearily to a chipper morning missive sent south of 6 A.M. before her morning run.

It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

Freedom that lacks moral truth becomes its own worst enemy.

If you are watching fanatically over the morality of your children you may yourself be not completely in order.

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right.

If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.

It's good to remember that success may be just beyond the next failure, and you'll get there, not because you're destined to, but because you're determined to.