Reporters are not paid to operate in retrospect. Because when news begins to solidify into current events and finally harden intohistory, it is the stories we didn't write, the questions we didn't ask that prove far, far more damaging than the ones we did.

Every reader, I suspect, has a book like this somewhere in his or her past, a book that seemed to hold within it, at that moment, all the mysteries of the universe.

So you're getting squeezed at both sides. You're taking care of your mom and dad and you're still doing caregiving with your kids, which is not easy. But I think overall, there's a level of satisfaction that might be unparalleled.

So much of what you take for granted is the bedrock of happiness.

A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn't believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation.

the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.

If I waited long enough and said, "Okay, so what you're saying is you liked your life a lot better when you were 30?" everybody would get real quiet and then admit that that wasn't the case, that they really felt like they were sort of growing into themselves in a way.