“What I say is, don't go playing unless you can win. Only sit down to chess with idiots, only kick a dog what's dead already, and don't love a lady unless she loves you first.”

“If your boy's alive, the last thing you should want to do is double his trouble. Don't try to run to him when he's in something thick unless you can bring him the answer. ... If you raised your boy how you should've, then you know he's fighting with what he's got. If he dies, then you'll know he died trying, and that's as much as you can ask. ... Ted's gone. But he left you a son made out of the same stuff he was, and don't you underestimate him. If you know Tom, then you'll have some faith in the boy. The odds might be long, but I'll bet on him.”

“In this story, the sun moves. In this story, every night meets a dawn and burns away in the bright morning. In this story, Winter can never hold back the Spring... He is the best of all possible audiences, the only Audience to see every scene, the Author who became a Character and heaped every shadow on Himself. The Greeks were right. Live in fear of a grinding end and a dank hereafter. Unless you know a bigger God, or better yet, are related to Him by blood.”

“Frank sniffed. 'You know me well, wife. I thought those were in the basement.''They were. You should have been an English teacher, Frank.''What are we going to do?' Henry asked.'We're going to build a wooden horse, stick you inside it, and offer it up as a gift,' Frank answered.'Burn your bridges when you come to them,' Dotty said. She smiled at Frank, picked up the empty plates, and walked back into the kitchen.'Can we watch?' Henrietta asked.'You,' Frank said, 'can go play in the barn, the yard, the fields, or the ditches, so long as you are nowhere near the action. C'mon, Henry.'The girls moaned and complained while Henry followed his uncle up the stairs. At the top, they walked all the way around the landing until they faced the very old, very wooden door to Grandfather's bedroom. Uncle Frank set down his tools.'Today is the day, Henry. I can feel it. I never told your aunt this, but my favorite book's in there. I was reading it to your Grandfather near the end. It's been due back at the library for awhile now, and it'd be nice to be able to check something else out.”

“Caves and darkness can't hold you when you die, they can only hold your bones.”

“Cyrus squinted through the rain at the old man, at the truck, at the crackling Golden Lady. What was going on? None of this seemed real. But it was. The rain on his skin. The soggy waffle and drooping napkins. The smell of gunpowder.”

“Writer's block — so what? Write something bad. Just throw it in the trash can when you're done, you're always improving. That kind of writing is like doing a bunch of push-ups. Every individual push-up is not the important thing. On Tuesday you're going to think, "Is it really important that I do it today?" No, but the collective impact is. If you write every day, you will improve.”