We seem to live a culture that doesn't want blemishes. The vision of most beautiful models... airbrushed in order to be seen as perfect, infects our notion of how literature should be written.

Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.

Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.

I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.

I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.

Every library is a library of preferences, and every chosen category implies an exclusion.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

Unicorns, dragons, witches may be creatures conjured up in dreams, but on the page their needs, joys, anguishes, and redemptions should be just as true as those of Madame Bovary or Martin Chuzzlewit.

One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.

I'll always consider myself a Southerner. A lot of people put California down, but my dreams were realized there.

Can I convince the person about whom I'm crazy to be crazy about me? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.

A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward.

You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.

Every way of life produces its own environment and in turn is influenced by that environment.

If the [Republican] party wants to have an ideological debate, it's never going to win anything in a major way.

Free-diving is all about being lean, being super-flexible, and having a good breath hold.

One thing I want to say: I don't like victim stories and I don't write them.

No one likes crying, but tears water our souls.