To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall .... [p.218 ff.]

You are the same person in every aspect of your life, and you have to be a responsible person in every aspect of your life.

I always feel it is a shortcoming of mine as a reader and as a writer that I frankly need to like somebody.

The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.

I will go and speak at rotary clubs. I will go and speak at schools. I'm so much in the community, but in a way that I love. It's been such a positive thing.

It is said the sesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.

I should figure out why I'm so much more interested in doing something that I think is really hard. But, somehow, the thing that is hard for me feels more noble.