With every sentence she writes, Davis freshens the senses. Her novels achieve a tone that’s unlike anyone else’s, creating an atmosphere you don’t so much interpret as breathe.

There are times in your life when, despite the steel weight of your memories and the sadness that seems to lie at your feet like a shadow, you suddenly and strangely feel perfectly okay.

The living carry us inside them like pearls. We survive only so long as they remember us.

People who read Anne Lamott, like people who read Anne Rice, believe that tragedy is romantic, but the people who read Anne Lamott believe it ironically.

There was no one alive who did not contribute his share of mystery to the world.

I write out of gratitude for all the books I have loved over the years.

The books you love best - those are the immensity of the sea.

She had the same responsibility as everybody else did: to live as softly as she could in the world.

Worry is a mean-faced dwarf who beats on your heart like a kettledrum.

I always try to stay as quiet as possible about a book until it's finished.

I had always been the kind of boy who was quick to laugh and quick to cry.

Gratefulness heightens awareness.

Regardless of our cleverness, our achievements, and our gadgets, we are spiritual paupers without God.

As the days went by, my frustration festered like an outhouse during a Jamaican summer.

It's hard to get people to focus on one idea.

The body is like a companion, a friendly pet that follows one around...One can continue to own the body and be responsible for it without identifying with it as one's identity.

We're going to let foreign corporations and their CEO's decide the outcomes of the [presidential elections] you just can't do this.

Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.

How much cooler was Oz than seeing the little dude behind the curtain?

Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.

Each time anyone comes in contact with us, they must become different and better people because of having met us. We must radiate God's love.