Some people do wait their whole lives for something, and it's only when that thing arrives that they find out that they've been waiting rather than living.

I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures.

a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.

Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn't. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff.

You cannot be an egomaniac on the horse. If you lose your temper and start beating him, either you will destroy him, or he will destroy you. As soon as you start riding horses seriously, you're being disciplined on a daily basis about how ignorant you are and what there is left for you to learn.

Like most of the educated, I do harbor a fondness for the sins of my ignorant past.