People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

I think the gift of my mother's death, if anything so terrible can be said to have an upside to it, is that I was always keenly aware that life was fleeting, and that you'd better live while you have the chance. As I say in the book, since I was 19 years old I felt like I was living for two, and when I out-lived my mother, when I got into my forties, it felt like a miracle to me.

Maybe crazy is just the word we use for feelings that will not be contained.

knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us.

Those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers.

My home was in a pleasant place outside of Philadelphia. But I really lived, truly lived, somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books.

I hadn't written a love story before and I hadn't written a novel with a happy ending before.