Inaction counted as a choice.

Don't tell me what's necessary, you presumptupus pup. What's necessary is whatever I wish to do, regardless of how unnecessary it might be.

Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.

What looks tragic might be comic on second consideration, and what is comic might bring tears in time.

Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.

The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

Even as a child, she had preferred night to day, had enjoyed sitting out in the yard after sunset, under the star-speckled sky listening to frogs and crickets. Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities.