“Nathan, how can you stand playing the same piece over and over again?" And Grandpa Nate answered, "Why don't you ask me how I can stand making love to the same woman over and over again?”

“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”

“I don’t know how you can stand it. Over and over again, the same sadness—”He lifted her up. “The same ecstasy—”“The same fire that kills everything—”“The same passion that ignites it all again. You don’t know. You can’t remember how wonderful—”“I’ve seen it. I do know.”

“Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.”

“But happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole thing can be covered with a plain dark rind.”

“I could tell that she felt happy.  Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.”

“There were times in school when a person had to do things fast, cheap, and without character.”