“I wonder if they talk about my ending as a tragedy. If the words would have and should have clung their talons behind my name, or if their sentences always have the word was instead of is.”

“An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”

“No good sentences ever include the word ‘should.’ I should have paid the tavern bill; now they’re coming to break my legs. I should never have run off with my best friend’s wife; now she devils me constantly. I should—”

“It is my own language, limited as it is. I will have to learn to work with it. There was a kind of poetry I was seeking in my prose, word to be laid against word in just a certain way, a kind of word color, a march of words and sentences, the color to be squeezed out of simple words, simple sentence construction.”

“Okay is just a word I use so I won't have to talk about what's inside. Okay is a word that means I am going to keep my secrets.”

“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”