“I suppose the Valley of the Na, in Always Coming Home, is where I think I'd most like to live; but that's partly because I did live there, all the summers of my childhood.”

“For my part, I think that the mystery is always greatest where there is the most - emptiness.”

“I'd be at work where poeple respected my opinions, said Nick. And then, I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot.”

“I believe how you looked was supposed to mean, something graver, more substantial: I'd gaze at my poor face and think, "It's still not there." Apparently I still do. What isn't there? Beauty? Not likely. Wisdom? Less. Is how we live or try to live supposed to embellish us? All I see is the residue of my other, failed faces. But maybe what we're after is just a less abrasive regard: not "It's still not there," but something like "Come in, be still.”

“I gulped, then stepped over the threshold into the house where I'd lived as a boy. After eighteen long years of wandering, I had finally come home.”

“I love Twinkies, and the reason I am saying that is because we are all supposed to think of reasons to live.”