“I respect every way in which you are a troublemaker, now get up and do what your mother says.”

“Mooreland is a long way to go to not to be anywhere when you get there.”

“. . .Since we were only going to the best place on the Earth, where every single minute of every day was different and filled with promise, what the heck difference did it make what we were gonna do”

“But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.”

“Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin? ”

“Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching-bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait till you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan.”

“...he said almost nothing, and ground his teeth against his desire to tell them the truth: God is helpless. We are at the mercy of our own radical freedom, and all God can do is take into God's self the grief, the violence, the sublime acts of kindness, the good sex. God comes to us from the future, and has only one godlike gift: the lure. We are lured toward truth, beauty, and goodness...the lure is pulling at our hearts like some lucid joy inside every actual occasion and all we have to do is...Say yes.”