Because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

I used to do everything to keep a wall up around myself and keep my life quiet so that I could write.

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 am not mature enough as a reader to enjoy a book in which I hate all the people.

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.]

Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.