"You can see why we children asked so many questions. It is a vague story, the kind parents prefer to tell." The Bear Called State O' Maine, p.13

"Coach Bob was angry with my father, again - for the same old thing, it seemed: for never being satisfied, as Bob put it, for living in the future. For always making plans for next year instead of just living, moment by moment." The First Hotel New Hampshire, p. 55

"But the first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels." The First Hotel New Hampshire, p. 65

"I was fourteen. In my inexpert years (and I would always be inexpert on the subject of rape), I imagined that one would touch a person who had been raped a little differently...