novel

For it is clear immediately: human life as such is a defeat. All we can do in the face of that ineluctable defeat called life is to try to understand it. That - that is the raison d'être of the art of the novel.

No matter how much restitution she paid with every word and deed, her blood-stained hands could never really be clean, even if no one else knew they were dirty.

Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.

The great novels are deterrents. A Merck's manual on how not to live.

Whatever__ eating at you, let it go. Emotion leads to poor decisions. Poor decisions lead to scrutiny. Scrutiny is our greatest threat.

Yet losing him seemed unbearable. He was the one she loved, the one she would always love, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she gave herself over to him. While he held her close, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the strength in his arms. She knew he__ wanted more in their relationship than she__ been willing to offer, but here and now, she suddenly knew she had no other choice. There was only this moment, and it was theirs.

That's the way life takes us,' Elleke once said. 'It takes us like this, then it turns us over and takes us like that.' What she didn't say was that through it all we manage to cling to something that makes sense.

You know what feels really fucking awesome? Loving someone so much that it's all consuming. Telling that person you love them, even though they refuse to say it back. And then finally hearing them say that they do love you, but to someone else. To someone they have slept with. Someone that isn't you. I want to forget I heard those three words. I want to dissolve the images I have in my heard of her with him. I think I'm going to throw up.

There__ something so great about this,_ she whispers. About what?_ I whisper back.About this,_ she whispers. About being outlaws. It__ just you and me__gainst the world.

Pfft, aren__ you optimistic,_ my mouth twists into an ugly grimace as I clench my fists. My throat dries from the rushed breathing as my vision blurs, tears drying, my blood pounds in my ears. __hinking as if this shit storm will ever blow over. Everyone__ got their scars and stories. This is yours.__hough I__l always be haunted, memories always resurface.

I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

Whatever__ eating at you, let it go. Emotion leads to poor decisions. Poor decisions lead to scrutiny. Scrutiny is our greatest threat.__he Barn

Suffering is tossed by handfuls over the multitudes, with most of it falling on some people and little or none of it on others.

Are you sorry? Do you wish you could do it all again and go off and write novels instead of being a teacher?No. You can__ trade what is for what might have been.

Inspiration doesn't always come in chronological order.

For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget.

When you get everything you wanted, I think maybe you do have to be a little grateful for the people who got you there.. whether or not they thought they were doing you any favors at the time.

I swear from the bottom of my heart I want to be healed. I want to be like other men, not this outcast whom nobody wants.