“Each time a language dies, another flame goes out, another sound goes silent.”

“You could make mistakes when you lived together because you knew you'd wake up the next morning with another chance.”

“She sees the image of God in human beings, he thought, even when they are not at their best.”

“Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper.”

“So it goes as I work my way down the page, and each cluster of marks is a word, and each word is a sound in my head, and each time I write another word, I hear the sound of my own voice, even though my lips are silent.”

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

“Poet' had always sounded like a profession to me, or a talent. But the dead American [Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry] made it sound like a faith.”