Tobias Wolff Quotes

I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all.

The human heart is a dark forest

a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.

There are very few professions in which people just sit down and think hard for five or six hours a day all by themselves. Of course it's why you want to become a writer — because you have the liberty to do that, but once you have the liberty you also have the obligation to do it.

Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.