“I long for the simplicity of theatre. I want lessons learned, comeuppances delivered, people sorted out, all before your bladder gets distractingly full. That's what I want. What I know is what we all know, whether we'll admit it or not: every attempt to impose the roundness of a well-made play on reality produces a disaster. Life just isn't so, nor will it be made so.”

“The worm drives helically through the woodAnd does not know the dust left in the boreOnce made the table integral and good;And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;The names of lovers, light of other daysPerhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.The universe winds down. That's how it's made.But memory is everything to lose;Although some of the colors have to fade,Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.Regret, by definition, comes too late;Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.”

“What is literature, and why do I try to write about it? I don’t know. Likewise, I don’t know why I go on living, most of the time. But this not knowing is precisely what I want to preserve. As readers, the closest way we can engage with a literary work is to protect its indeterminacy; to return ourselves and it to a place that precludes complete recognition. Really, when I’m reading, all I want is to stand amazed in front of an unknown object at odds with the world.”

“Askade took the battertoast, looked at it blearily. "I can't rewire it into a death ray without some extra parts," he said, and took a bite. "Hm. Tastes okay. What's the problem?”

“We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.”

“Lost, I am Lost! My fates have doomed my death.The more I strive, I love; the more I love,The less I hope. I see my ruin, certain.What judgement or endeavors could applyTo my incurable and restless woundsI throughly have examined, but in vain.Oh, that it were not in religion sinTo make our love a god and worship it!I have even wearied heaven with prayers, dried upThe spring of my continual tears, even starvedMy veins with daily fasts; what wit or artCould counsel, I have practiced. But, alas,I find all these but dreams and old men's talesTo fright unsteady youth; I'm still the same.Or I must speak or burst. Tis not, I know,My lust, but tis my fate that leads me on.Keep fear and low fainthearted shame with slaves!I'll tell her that I love her, through my heartWere rated at the price of that attempt.”

“He'd learned long ago: perfection isn't what families are all about.”