When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us everyday.

Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.

Gilbert has established herself as a straight-up storyteller who dares us into adventures of worldly discovery, and this novel stands as a winning next act. “The Signature of All Things” is a bracing homage to the many natures of genius and the inevitable progress of ideas, in a world that reveals its best truths to the uncommonly patient minds.

she's never forgotten, either, how a mystery caught in the hand could lose its grace

It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.