The attraction of cynicism was that it so often put you in the right, as if being right led directly to happiness.

He’d meant to forgive his brother, maybe even imagined he had. He’d also meant to learn to trust him, but instead merely fell into the habit of waiting for him to fuck up again.

You can’t possibly judge your ability to control something until you’ve experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

An imperfect human heart, perfectly shattered, was her conclusion. A condition so common as to be virtually universal, rendering issues of right and wrong almost incidental.

One of the odd things about middle age…was the strange decisions a man discovers he’s made by not really making them.

It’s not an easy time for any parent, this moment when the realization dawns that you’ve given birth to something that will never see things the way you do, despite the fact that it is...

Novel writing is mostly triage (this now, that later) and obstinacy. Trying something, and when that doesn’t work, trying something else. Welcoming clutter Surrendering a good idea for a better one. Knowing you won’t find...

What I discovered I liked best about striking out on my bicycle was that the farther I got from home, the more interesting and unusual my thoughts became.

Like many men addicted to sports, Clive Sr. was also a religious man.

Everybody looked at Sully suspiciously. A rumor that he had burned up in the blaze had been circulating, and people had quickly adjusted to the idea of profound human tragedy. They were reluctant to give...

To his surprise he…discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something…that you cared about a great deal.

It was a scary thought. A man could be surrounded by poetry reading and not know it.

You get more misanthropic every day.- I get older every day. My experience of human nature gets wider and deeper.

Miles smiled. “Can you keep a secret?”Bea snorted. “Did I tell you what you were in for if you married my daughter?””No,” Miles conceded.”Well, then,” she said, as if that settled the matter.

I don’t tell you this story today in order to encourage all of you in the class of ’04 to find careers in the music business, but rather to suggest what the next decade of...

To weigh and evaluate a vast grid of information, much of it meaningless, and to arrive at sensible, if erroneous, conclusions, is a skill not to be sneezed at.

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

Stories worked much the same way…A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.

…he had to comfort himself with the firm conviction that most of what he objected to in Mohawk and the world at large was not the result of people reading the wrong books, but rather...

Interesting, Miles thought. Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more comfort from...

Max would conclude, “that’s who I want to be. The pope. And I’ll do the same thing he does. I’ll keep all the goddamn money.

In matters of affection, the rules of engagement at Empire High were detailed yet unambiguous, an extension of procedures established in junior high, a set of guidelines that couldn’t have been clearer if they’d been...

Since her retirement from teaching Miss Beryl’s health had in many respects greatly improved, despite her advancing years. An eighth-grade classroom was an excellent place to snag whatever was in the air in the way...