It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago."

"Nobody understands anyone 18, including those who are 18."

"True love is night jasmine, a diamond in darkness, the heartbeat no cardiologist has ever heard. It is the most common of miracles, fashioned of fleecy clouds -- a handful of stars tossed into the night sky."

"The reporter is the daily prisoner of clocked facts. . . . On all working days, he is expected to do his best in one swift swipe at each story."

"It is impossible to read for pleasure from something to which you are both father and mother, born in such travail that the writer despises the thing that enslaved him."