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

Your sense of responsibility to others can never be excessive.

She'd been acutely aware that terror, betrayal, and cruelty had a human face, but she had not sufficiently appreciated that courage, kindness, and love had a human face as well.

I try not to spend too much time on partisan politics. Life's too short for that. I don't really believe that there have been many human problems solved by politics.

Books are packaged dreams.

Only the human spirit can act with volition and consciously change itself; it is the only thing in all creation that is not entirely at the mercy of forces outside itself.

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.