“I think he imagined the Politburo would hold up his letter and say, "Hold everything, Kenneth Hockney has written again!"”

“I would hold you up. I will ever hold you up and hold you dear, lover mine.”

“I am here, and he is here, and everything I need to know is that I will hold him and he will hold me until I am warm again, until I know I belong. (Your Temporary Santa)”

“I held her, he wanted to say, and if I knew for certain that all it would take to hold her again would be to die, then I couldn't raise the gun to my head fast enough.”

“An Hispanic-American writer tells me, ‘I will never give up my family language; I would as soon give up my soul.’ Thus he holds to his chest a skein of words, as though it were the source of his family ties. He credits to language what he should credit to family members. A convenient mistake. For as long as he holds on to words, he can ignore how much else has changed in his life.”

“I am a painter with letters. I want to restore everything, mix everything up and say everything.”

“Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold.”

“He closes his hand around mine and I hold on. I like his hand. It's big and holds easy but sure. It's the kind of hold that says, I got you if you want me, but I'll let you go if you feel like running for a while.”

“Imagine how they would have mocked you if you proclaimed, 'Not only is the world a sphere, but there is an invisible, mystical force that holds everything to its surface'!”

“But it is a well-known maxim of war that whoever tries to hold on to everything at once, finishes up by holding nothing at all.”