I'm a survivor, I said. But I didn't think that claim would carry much weight in an obituary.
Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.
I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s, people in our graduate program who...
In a world where the most consequential things happen by chance, or from unfathomable causes, you don't look to reason for help. You consort with mysteries... They have been killed in place of you - i...
We are made to persist.that's how we find out who we are.
The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.
Getting from La Jolla to Alta Vista State Hospital isn't easy, unless you have a car or a breakdown. April's Father had a breakdown and they got him there in no time.
Lose Faith. Pray anyway. Persist. We are made to persist, to complete the whole tour. That's how we find out who we are.
And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.
You just go from day to day and before you know it fifty years are up.
Why were Jack and his brother digging post holes? A fence there would run parallel to the one that already enclosed the farmyard. The Welches had no animals to keep in or out - a fence there could ser...
He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else.
There is only one thing you have to know about the future: everything gets worse.
The human heart is a dark forest
We're never too old for dreams.
Most of our desires are clichés, right? Ready to wear, one size fits all. I doubt if it’s even possible to have an original desire anymore.
Say you've just read Faulkner's 'Barn Burning'. Like the son in the story, you've sensed the faults in your father's character. Thinking about them makes you uncomfortable, left alone you'd probably c...
Rhyme is bullshit. Rhyme says that everything works out in the end. All harmony and order. When I see a rhyme in a poem, I know I'm being lied to. Go ahead, laugh! It's true—rhyme's a completely bankr...
Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power only until you found what you had to have.
They’ll die, and then they’ll be dead.