A loving mother-son relationship is always a plot or outwitting of some kind. 'Don't tell anyone, but...' my mother was always saying to me - when I wasn't saying it to her.

I read somewhere once that in the 1960s, fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem - more profound, I think - is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact.

People can be so neglectful of each other and of their own heritage - then death intrudes. Conversations we wish that we'd had earlier are had too late.

Walter Kirn Quotes