“But it was from him – with his cool, long sideburns and aviator sunglasses, and box of watercolor paints (and artist’s paycheck) – from him we learned how to create beauty where none exists, how to be generous beyond our means, how to change a small corner of the world just by making a little dinner for a few friends.”

“The reader reads aloud, with a sing-song up … then down … then down again cadence. My mood shifts from merely reluctant to derisive. It’s a tired reading style. I’m sick of it. It attaches more importance to the words than the words themselves—as they’ve been arranged—could possibly sustain, and it gives poets and poetry a bad name.”

“That is my favorite kind of integrated person. Some of each thing and not too much of any one.”