14 Quotes by Charles D'Ambrosio

Being suicidal is really tiring. A lot of suicides are so lacking in affect and so lethargic that they aren’t able to kill themselves until their mood improves—spring, for that reason, has the highest rate of what people in the business call “completed” suicides.

Folks double my age and older often run down a conversation tracking a vanishing world that will, with the passing of their memory, vanish entirely.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my first instinct is a sort of stupid ducking motion I’ve learned from the movies, and I have the sure sense I’m going to be shot in the neck, where I feel particularly exposed and vulnerable.

Alone, you're vastly outnumbered; but in the company of another, by some weird miracle of human math, the odds seem wonderfully improved in your favor.

The canker of self-consciousness has been long in me, so like a lot of writers I not only do a thing, I see myself doing it too—it’s almost like not being alone. That morning our hero skipped in his skivvies down to the shore of the sea . . . it was dark . . . the fog . . . Storytelling!

Really, I think among the many mistakes I’ve made over my life, one of them was caring so much about the short story.

Where exactly do you put your hands on somebody who hurts everywhere?

Alone, you’re vastly outnumbered; but in the company of another, by some weird miracle of human math, the odds seem wonderfully improved in your favor.

I’ve often thought that the unit of measure that best suits prose is the human breath.