Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

The Swedish he knew was mostly from Bergman films. He had learned it as a college student, matching the subtitles to the sounds. In Swedish, he could only converse on the darkest of subjects.

If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

Anytime you write about priests or cops, they're hot-button professions.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.