But if one's dreams having to come true was the only referendum on whether they were beautiful, or worth dreaming, well then, no one would wish for anything. And that would be so much sadder.

Not being funny doesn't make you a bad person. Not having a sense of humor does.

Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up.

Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

We’re creatures of contact regardless of whether/ we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.

There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.

Youth is not wasted on the young, it is perpetrated on the young.

Central to living a life that is good, is a life that's forgiving.

I am neither spontaneous nor ready for anything.

I have managed to establish an identity that is based on my internal self, and for that I feel tremendously lucky.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

The more we love our friends the less we flatter them it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

A definite factor in getting a lie believed is the size of the lie. The broad mass of the people, in the simplicity of their hearts, more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious

By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.

There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.

My feelings for you shame me into silence.

If a man doesn't have a dream, then he has nothing to work for. Nothing to get up in the morning. No reason, no purpose, to be

I think it's very good to have regrets, to learn how to live with them.

It's better to not be afraid of things and not avoid things.