Quotes from Charles Baxter

As my mother once said to me, 'They're quite crazy, dear – men are. What you look for is one of them whose insanity is large enough, and calm and generous enough, to include you.

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.

You know, there's something heartsick about parties like this. Look at us. We're all pretending to be smart, as if intelligence were the cure for our anguish.

When readers don't like the book, it's usually because they feel that romantic love is pass or somehow needs more irony.

You think that what I've told you is an anecdote. But really it isn't. It's my whole life. It's the only story I have.

I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again.

The truth is that I'm never sure how any of my books will be received, and because I can be thin-skinned, I try not to read too many reviews when a book first comes out.

There's nothing to talk about to strangers anymore, if you know what I mean. Everything I want to say, I say to her.

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

Making love to him was like going through a car wash, except you came out dirtier and more alive at the other end.

You think that what I've told you is an anecdote. But really it isn't. It's my whole life. It's the only story I have.

Before, I was always trying to make my relationships work by means of willpower and forced affability. This time I didn't have to strive for anything. A quality of ease spread over us.

You fall in love with someone not because he's nice to you or can read your mind but because, when he kisses you, your knees weaken, or because you can't stop looking at his skin or at the way his legs, inside his jeans, shape the fabric.

The twentieth century has built up a powerful set of intellectual shortcuts and devices that help us defend ourselves against moments when clouds suddenly appear to think.

Because it is the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more of a dull shine, like frequently used silverware.

Every day became an epic of endurance.

She has a winning smile. She wins, she always wins.

You can not figure out love without figuring out death, too, but the effort it takes can knock the wind out of you. Love is the first cousin of death, they're acquainted with each other, they go to the same family reunions.

Charm sometimes has a habit of taking its leave of you. (p.256)

it helps that in michigan everyone goes inside from november through april. but from may until october they are outside, on display, and all of a sudden if you are single, you have a window to heaven and no way at all to get in.

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.

I felt as though I were in the presence of one of God's more complicated pranks.

I am glimmerless.

Men have strength, Miss Ferenczi said, but no true magic. That is why men fall in love with women but women do not fall in love with men: they just love being loved.