Perhaps this is the only real evil left.

Obviously, a writer can't know everything about what she writes. It's impossible.

Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.

Then, are you master of us all? You didn't teach her that. Was she supposed to imbibe it from my quiet subservience?

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

Do you know what it means to be loved by Death?... Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?

And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.