Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.[Eddie Scissons]

I'm not trying to bleed you. I want to renew you.

Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they're good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear.

Serenity is a very elusive quality. I've been trying all my life to find it.

I wonder if there are soft-spoken voices who deliver assignments to all of us in various times ... It is nice to think I have company-that others dance to the muted music I hear.

Perhaps crossing the barriers of time has freed me.

What causes all this?""Pride. What else?

Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.

I am more than a little jealous that the wonder I am party to has been sprinkled over Salinger's gray head.

The kind of people I absolutely cannot tolerate are those who never let you forget they are religious. It seems to me that a truly religious person would let his life be example enough, would not let his religion interfere with being a human being, and would not be so insecure as to have to fawn publicly before his gods.

Any game becomes important when you know and love the players.

God what an outfield,' he says. 'What a left field.' He looks up at me, and I look down at him. 'This must be heaven,' he says.No. It's Iowa,' I reply automatically. But then I feel the night rubbing softly against my face like cherry blossoms; look at the sleeping girl-child in my arms, her small hand curled around one of my fingers; think of the fierce warmth of the woman waiting for me in the house; inhale the fresh-cut grass small that seems locked in the air like permanent incense; and listen to the drone of the crowd, as below me Shoelss Joe Jackson tenses, watching the angle of the distant bat for a clue as to where the ball will be hit.I think you're right, Joe,' I say, but softly enough not to disturb his concentration.