Solitary people, these book lovers. I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't see them for a long time, you don't have to wonder what they do, how they're getting along with themselves. You just know that they're all right, and probably doing something they like.

I see all mythology as one tradition, a way of disseminating knowledge that must come to us in code so that we can live sanely with it, since some forms of knowledge are too dark, or too complex, to be plainly spoken. And so we have these weird (and also sometimes entertaining and surprising and heartening) tales that belong to all of us.

I always wanted to be a writer! But I wanted to do other things, too - be a psychologist, a librarian, et cetera. Now Ive decided that reading fiction that features characters who are in those professions will do.

Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.

I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work.

There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.

Because things grow. Wherever there is air and light and open space, things grow.