Offer it up personally,then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer-you can finish the business yourself, from within yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential.

I cannot overstate the power of libraries in my life.

Love renders all of our plans and all of our hopes a gamble.

We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentment and mortality.

the four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry.

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.

The thing I love about Dickens is the omniscient, omnipotent narrator, and the great confidence of the narrator, which marks 19th-century novelists in general and Dickens in particular.