If there is such a thing as a universal--and I wasn't ready to throw all of mine out the window--it's that there is power in a story. And if someone pays you such a kindness as to make up a tale so you'll enjoy a gingersnap, you go along with that story and enjoy every last bite.

There are no coincidences. Just miracles by the boatload.

He could hear trhe voices, the whispers, the sighs, of these souls who were unable to let go of their burdens. ... Pi understood this need to hold on. To let let go of his pain. It had become such a part of him. Who would he be without it? The thought frightened him. So he wandered the halls of the catacombs like the other souls who were half-dead and half-alive.

I'd heard of really bad things Klan folks did to Negroes. Mean, hateful, deadly things. I didn't know they were hateful toward white folks too.

This was a land of lost souls. Human beings who had weathered great storms in life, had suffered unspeakable loss, had been put to painful tests of existence, and still remained standing-but just barely.

If there is such a thing as a universal--and I wasn't ready to throw all of mine out the window--it's that there is power in a story. And if someone pays you such a kindness as to make up a tale so you'll enjoy a gingersnap, you go along with that story and enjoy every last bite.

Maybe the world wasn’t made of universals that could be summed up in neat little packages. Maybe there were just people. People who were tired and hurt and lonely and kind in their own way and their own time.