A superb and dreadfully moving account of the glory and subsequent murder by the Romanians of the Jewish city in Odessa. . . . Odessa is both celebration and lament and equally impressive as both.

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.

The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

We read, frequently if not unknowingly, in search of a mind more original than our own.

I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike

It is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.

Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy.

Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.

Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.

The art and passion of reading well and deeply is waning, but [Jane] Austen still inspires people to become fanatical readers.

You are as much able as you know

An entrepreneur is someone who is the king of his business one day and its slave the next.

If we take the time to silence the chatter in our minds, it gives our heart the opportunity to awaken from its slumber. Peace of mind begins with peace in the heart.

If you like a man and he likes you, you should get married as fast as you can. Otherwise, you both are going to change your minds. There's plenty of time for that after marriage.

our right or wrong use of money is the utmost test of character, as well as the root of happiness or misery, throughout our whole lives.

You cannot have development in today's world without partnering with the private sector.

It sounds corny, but it's absolutely true: A song chooses me. I don't go looking for a certain kind of lyric. It kind of develops its own little arc and I'll just see what happens.

I was raised on comic books, and I love science fiction.

I do object to the sensationalism or even the voyeurism of doing things in church or out of church.

I don’t want to be an actor or nothing but if I have to, I’ll act if it’s the right thing.