~Jeffrey Eugenides from THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

"It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do no hear us . . . calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together."

~Jeffrey Eugenides from THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

"'We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it -- that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.'"

~Jeffrey Eugenides from THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

"'These trees are ancient. They have evolutionary strategies to deal with beetles. Why don't you just leave it up to nature?' / 'If we left it up to nature, there'd be no trees left.' / 'That's what it's going to be like anyway.'"

~Tim O'Brien from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

"The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can't help but gape at the awful majesty of combat."

~Tim O'Brien from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

"War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. war is nasty; war is fun. war is thrilling; war is drudgery. war makes you a man; war makes you dead."

~Tim O'Brien from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

"... the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. you pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents taht did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.