Martin Wilson's What They Always Tell Us hears the voices of the young as they struggle toward adulthood.

The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.

I read because one life isn't enough and in the pages of a book, I can be anybody.

Only the nonreader fears books.

We write by the light of every story we have ever read.

Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.

We don't write what we know. We write what we wonder about.

If you cannot find yourself on the page very early in life, you will go looking for yourself in all the wrong places.

Because nobody but a reader ever became a writer.

This is how you hold onto your family. You hold them with open hands so they are free to find futures of their own. It's just that simple.

When I read a good book, it's like traveling the world without ever leaving my chair.

I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.

I think historically America has been pretty tolerant. It seems when there's a mass influx from one place, that's when it becomes problematic for Americans.

We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.

He looked like he'd just seen the Ghost of You Better Shut Your Mouth.

Tomorrow is another day. I've got plenty of things to worry about right now.

The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.

In mysticism we have to take all the imprinting that has occurred to us and wash it. Then we need to be re-imprinted but in a different way. Without it, we don't survive.

No matter how sinful one may have been, if he has devotion to Mary, it is impossible that he be lost.

Ah, good ol’ trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die.

Things have to be beautifully made, even if they are full of fun, fantasy and futility