“It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn’t wait to leave.”

“Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.”

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”

“No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.”

“If you are waiting for anything in order to live and love without holding back, then you suffer.”

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever.”

“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”

“The great and present danger to American literature is the growing homogeneity of our writers, especially the younger generation. Often raised in several places in no specific cultural or religious community, educated with no deep connection to a region, history, or tradition, and now employed mostly in academia, the American writer is becoming as standardized as the American car--functional, streamlined, and increasingly interchangeable”

“To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.”

“I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.”