Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful.

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.

If my mother hadn't tried to sell me chicken Kiev cutlets for $1.40 after I graduated from college, maybe I would've been the lawyer she wanted me to be.

You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.

Forget the fountain of youth, pal of mine. You can live to be a thousand, and it won't matter. Mediocrities like you deserve immortality.

If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.

Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.

I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.

I've screwed everything up royally. I remember you saying that growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change.

When you're doing what's right, on and off the field, the Lord steps in and plays a part.

If people want me to be their role-model, it would be nice.

I'll be wearing my high heels, even if I'm up to my knees in mud

When people say stuff like, "Oh, that's soft rock. I don't listen to that," I find that elitist. It's music-racist.

I always tell people I'm running against two Democrats, one that admits it and one that does not.

When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.

Even in the wildest storms the sky is not all dark; and so in the darkest dealings of God with His children, there are always some bright tokens for good.

In its haste to bolster nationalism, in its obsession with security, Europe is losing its soul.