What is literature, really? Boiled down to a single sentence, I'd say it's this: an endless conversation about what it means to be human. And to read literature is to engage in that conversation.

...we take comfort in the symmetries we find in life because they suggest a design where there is none.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.

What about you? Are you happiest and saddest right now that you've ever been?" "Of course I am." "Why?" "Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them.

To hike out alone in the desert; to sleep on the valley floor on a night with no moon, in the pitch black, just listening to the boom of silence: you can't imagine what that's like.

That's what I do. Watch movies and read. Sometimes I even pretend to write, but I'm not fooling anyone. Oh, and I go to the mailbox.

When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.

So many words get lost. They leave the mouthand lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past.

I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.

Keep your circle small with positive minded individuals who only come to grow with you, and not to take advantage of you.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

You sip the water from the same ocean in which all the hope was lost. Us

But thou when thou prayest enter into thy room and when thou hast shut thy door pray to thy Father who is in secret and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

I was born in 1954. My parents were brought up in the war years, and life was hard.

Unrestricted nationalism is, in the long run, incompatible with world peace.

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.

You’re the only one for me. I came back from the dead for you, Daisy. Twice.

Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.