Explore Quotes by Charles Baxter

The worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness.

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.

In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to you psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.

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

[T]he astonishing purity of pain, how it will not be mixed with any other sensation.

There is no weather in malls.

Everybody should customize their names.

In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.

Gainfully unemployed, very proud of it, too.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you--if you happen to be me--with homecoming queens first, then girls next door, and finally anybody who might be pleased to see you now and then at the dinner table and in bed on occasion. You look up from reading the newspaper and realize that no one loves you, and no one burns for you.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.

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.