I have never squandered an opportunity to read.

I was raised as a Catholic and received the body and blood of Jesus Christ every Sunday at communion until I was thirty years of age, when I became a vegetarian.

Lending books to other people is merely a shrewd form of housecleaning.

I have never squandered an opportunity to read.

The world is changing, but I am not changing with it. There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future. My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are. The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books. Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery systemBooks that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on. Books that make us believe, for however short a time, that we shall all live happily ever after.

Incapable of conjuring up any facial expression that she did not learn from watching television, Jessica Alba plays a brilliant scientist who inadvertently acquires the ability to make herself invisible. This is not a gift Alba seems particularly comfortable with, as the last thing she needs is to be heard but not seen.

Great writers say things that are so beautiful, the very act of repeating them makes life itself more beautiful.