“Why do philosophers in the South so often end as newspapermen, poets as doctors? Maybe they crave what's found in pain and loss: a sense of living among other human beings. They'll give up dreams for that.”

“People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being. Maybe that's why they give up on it so early, too.”

“Often, maybe even usually, Bernie ended up being the smartest human in the room. Tonight was different.”

“Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

“Love is fragile at best and often a burden or something that blinds us. It's fodder for poets and song writers and they build it into something beyond human capacity. Falling in love means enrolling yourself in the school of disappointment. Being human means failing each other often, and no two people fail each other more than two people who pledge to do things for each other that they'll never do because they are just incapable of it...That's why art is enduring. The look of love or hope, or the look of compassion, bravery, whatever, is captured forever. We spend our lives trying to get someone to be as enduring as a painting or a sculpture and we can't because feelings crumble as quickly as the flesh.”

“‎"Those who give up dreams, do injury to their own hearts and cannot possibly enjoy a profound sense of fulfillment in the end.”