“I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.”

“I'm a heart surgeon, sure, but I'm just a mechanic. I go in and I fuck around and I fix things. Shit.”

“I'm moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.”

“All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.”

“Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.”

“I’d like to go out in the front yard and shout something. “None of this is worth it!” That’s what I’d like people to hear.”

“It was [John Gardner's] conviction that if the words in the story were blurred because of the author's insensitivity, carelessness, or sentimentality, then the story suffered from a tremendous handicap. But there was something even worse and something that must be avoided at all costs: if the words and the sentiments were dishonest, the author was faking it, writing about things he didn't care about or believe in, then nobody could ever care anything about it.”