Then I buckled up my shoes, and I started.

... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.

History is not a procession of illustrious people. It's about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.

This is the charged, the dangerous moment, when everything must be re-examined, must be made new, when nothing at all can be taken for granted.

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.