“If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.”

“A man is an island in the only sense that matters, not an easy way to be. We live in mystery, a cosmos of separate lonely bodies, men, insects, stars. It is all loneliness and men know it best.”

“She had recently come to think that in such unhappy times-when the odds were so high against personal happiness-to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best as two people could was what really mattered. Was it more important to insist a man's religious beliefs be exactly hers, or that the two of them have in common ideals, a desire to keep love in their lives, and to preserve in every possible way what was best in themselves? The less difference among people, the better; thus she settled it for herself yet was dissatisfied for those for whom she hadn't settled it,”

“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge & enhance an idea, to reform it . . . Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing.”

“She waited uneasily and shyly. From afar he saw that her eyes--clearly her father's--were filled with desperate innocence. He pictured, in her, his own redemption. Violins and lit candles revolved in the sky. Leo ran forward with flowers out-thrust.”

“You could not pity anything if you weren't a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.”

“But she had recently come to think that in such unhappy times--when the odds were so high against personal happiness--to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best two people could was what really mattered.”