Quotes from Kent Haruf

We'd do better to follow the admonition of Jesus about loving our neighbours. People in the U.S. are capable of forgiveness and willing to see one another's point of view, but when matters become politicised, we're less able to do that.

Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first book.

I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.

Death is a fact of life, no matter where you live. Taking care of the dying is a necessity everywhere. Those are not conditions exclusive to small towns.

Writers who aren't from rural states in the Midwest or the West often treat such people as if they were the Waltons or the Beverly Hillbillies.

I write in a journal first, briefly. Then read something I've read many times before, for about half an hour, then rework what I wrote the day before.

You have to believe in yourself despite the evidence.

Who does ever get what they want? It doesn't seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It's always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.

I do love this physical world. I love this physical life with you. And the air and the country. The backyard, the gravel in the back alley. The grass. The cool nights. Lying in bed talking with you in the dark.

He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.

Who would have thought at this time in our lives that we'd still have something like this. That it turns out we're not finished with changes and excitements. And not all dried up in body and spirit.

I made up my mind I'm not going to pay attention to what people think. I've done that too long—all my life. I'm not going to live that way anymore.

I just want to live simply and pay attention to what's happening each day.

You have been good for me. What more could anyone ask for? I'm a better person than I was before we got together. That's your doing.

But we didn't know anything in our twenties when we were first married. It was all just instinct and the patterns we'd grown up with.

A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, a girl's got purposes you and me can't even imagine. They got ideas in their heads you and me can't even suppose.

Who would have thought at this time in our lives that we'd still have something like this.

Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are.

So life hasn't turned out right for either of us, not the way we expected,' he said. 'Except it feels good now, at this moment.

You're going to die some day without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind anyway.

Sins of omission, Louis said. You don't believe in sins. I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That's a sin.

Oh I feel better already talking with you here next to me.

Where are you? You mean where in the house? Are you in your bedroom? Yes, I've been reading. Is this some kind of phone sex? It's just two old people talking in the dark, Addie said.

You are still in love with her. No. But I think I'm in love a little with the memory of her.