I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down.

If I believed in curses, I would believe that this is mine: when it matters most, in the moments when I know with the greatest clarity exactly what needs to be done, everything I say comes out wrong.

It wasn't a remarkable face in any way, but it had a clean-lined sweetness that brought up summer barbecues, golden retrievers, soccer games on new-mown grass, and I have always been caught by the pull of the unremarkable, by the easily missed, infinitely nourishing beauty of the mundane.

I had forgotten that God, or the world, or whatever carves the rules in stone, doesn't give you time off for good behavior.

Humanity is destined to survive and thrive through failure. The rest of what anyone calls success is just an illusion.

Smoked like it was fuel and he was going to get every last inch to the gallon.