In my case, adulthood itself was not an advance, although it was a useful waymark.

I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.

Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.

For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo.

Printed books usually outlive bookstores and the publishers who brought them out. They sit around, demanding nothing, for decades. That's one of their nicest qualities - their brute persistence.

I've never been a fast reader. I'm fickle; I don't finish books I start; I put a book aside for five, ten years and then take it up again.

Haven't you felt a peculiar sort of worry about the chair in your living room that no one sits in?

Poetry is prose in slow motion.

Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for.

But spending your life concentrating on death is like watching a whole movie and thinking only about the credits that are going to roll at the end. It’s a mistake of emphasis.

Shoes are the first adult machines we are given to master.

But Amy, " Elder says. "Space suits!

People always ask me, 'Were you funny as a child?' Well, no, I was an accountant.

I truly hope you realize how important setting goals are for young women, teaching them we have so much more to offer than our bodies.

Most people think they want more money than they really do, and they settle for a lot less than they could get

MOTHER (a word that means the world to me)

I don't have that kind of voice, the big baritone or rousing tenor sound. My wheelhouse was in the frothier pieces. So my appreciation for those older musicals and revivals grew.

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.

Ownership, that's what you give your kids. That's your legacy.

I've deliberately tried to calm myself down because eventually I want to be a good role model to my kids.

I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.