An old man’s body is nothing but a sack in which he carries aches and indignities.
So when his tractor came to a smash-halt, the potato-digger rising up behind and then crashing back down, Bob was flung forward over the engine block and directly into the Dome. His iPod exploded in the wide front pocket of his bib overalls, but he never felt it. He broke his neck and fractured his skull on the nothing he collided with and died in the dirt shortly thereafter, by one tall wheel of his tractor, which was still idling. Nothing, you know, runs like a Deere.
Frightened people live in their own special hell.
A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast.
Develop a little self-righteousness. A lot of that is an ugly thing, God knows, but a little applied over all your scruples is an absolute necessity! It is to the soul what a good sun-block is to the skin during the heat of the summer. You can only captain your own soul, and from time to time some smart-ass psychologist will question your ability to even do that.
It was life, you were stuck with it, and all you could do was live it.
But grownups were always in a turmoil, every possible action muddied over by thoughts of the consequences, by self-doubt, by selfimage, by feelings of love and responsibility. Every possible choice seemed to have drawbacks, and sometimes he didn’t understand why the drawbacks were drawbacks. It was very hard.
He’s got all sorts of strange ideas to catch up on.
Only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, “Oh well, let it go, that’s what copyeditors are for.
Talk did no good with bullies. Hurting was the only language that the bullies of the world seemed to understand, and he supposed that was why the world always had such a hard time getting along.
What was he thinking? The Internet did not predict the future; only the pink Kindle did that.
I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. I don’t care if you understand me. Understanding is vastly overrated, but nobody ever gets enough safety.
Story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about.
The souls of humans have become poor and transparent things.
Remember, my talented friend, there are Michelangelos begging everywhere in the streets of Rome...
Disappointment was never a thing you looked for, but it had a wonderful way of clearing the mind.
Love is the enemy. Yes... the poets continually and sometimes willfully mistake love. Love is the old slaughterer. Love is not blind. Love is a cannibal with extremely acute vision. Love is insectile; it is always hungry.
Here is something I learned in 1922: there are always worse things waiting. You think you have seen the most terrible thing, the one that coalesces all your nightmares into a freakish horror that actually exists, and the only consolation is that there can be nothing worse. Even if there is, your mind will snap at the sight of it, and you will know no more. But there is worse, your mind does not snap, and somehow you carry on. You might understand that all the joy has gone...
People are only rational on the surface.
Look not long at what’s offered, for every precious thing has wings and may fly away.