At Night The Sky Is Pure Astronomy.

A Couple Months After My Heart Attack, Fifty-seven Years After I'd Given It Up, I Started To Write Again. I Did It For Myself Alone, Not For Anyone Else, And That Was The Difference. It Didn't Matter If I Found The Words, And More Than That, I Knew It Would Be Impossible To Find The Right Ones.

When You Are Young, You Think It's Going To Be Solved By Love. But It Never Is. Being Close -- As Close As You Can Get -- To Another Person Only Makes Clear That Impassable Distance Between You.' If Being In Love Only Made People More Lonely, Why Would Everyone Want It So Much?' Because Of The Illusion. You Fall In Love, It's Intoxicating, And For A Little While You Feel Like You've Actually Become One With The Other Person. Merged Souls And So On. You Think You'll Never Be Lonely Again.

Part Of The Work Of Writing A Novel Is To Uncover The Symmetries Or Connections That Make It Whole, Which Might Not Reveal Itself At First.

I Finally Understood That No Matter What I Did, Or Who I Found, I-he-none Of Us-would Ever Be Able To Win Over The Memories She Had Of Dad, Memories That Soothed Her Even While They Made Her Sad, Because She'd Built A World Out Of Them She Knew How To Survive On Even If No One Else Could.

If At Large Gatherings Or Parties, Or Around People With Whom You Feel Distant, Your Hands Sometimes Hang Awkwardly At The Ends Of Your Arms - I You Find Yourself At A Loss For What Do With Them, Overcome With Sadness That Comes When You Recognize The Foreignnes Of Your Own Body - It's Because Your Hands Remember A Time When The Division Between Mind And Body, Brain And Heart, What's Inside And What's Outside, Was So Much Less.