32 Quotes by Stephen McCauley

We all have a central fiction about ourselves, a favored delusion about talent or untapped potential. Most of us hang on to it as if it were a lifesaver, even though the obsession with it is often the very thing that drags us down and prevents us from fulfilling some lesser but more obtainable goal.

From what I can tell, the chief distinguishing factor between children and adults is that children hear everything while appearing not to and adults hear nothing while pretending to listen.

When everything looks perfectly right about a person, there’s usually something significantly wrong. They were probably in their early thirties, that awkward age when people still believe they matter and that life is going to go their way.

The only thing relationships needed in common was love – of some kind – and true love was rarely the result of a shared fondness for quilting.

Everything had been a battle of wills, an opportunity for him to lecture her, another reason for him to correct her faulty logic or lack of information.

Among the many hypocrisies of the “religious” was the fact that they viewed god as omnipotent, but treated Him like a ventriloquist’s dummy by putting their words and crackpot beliefs, prejudices, and unfounded biases into His mouth whenever it suited their purposes.

All couples start off as Romeo and Juliet and end up as Laurel and Hardy.

I keep trying to write happy endings, but my books always end on more of a bittersweet note of ambiguity.

The book that made me cry hardest was 'Stoner,' by John Williams.