The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.

You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller.

It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate; I had dying declarations.

Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt

Like the way the sun is right now, with the long shadows, and that kind of bright, soft light you get when the sun isn't quite setting? That's the light that makes everything better, everything prettier, and today, everything just seemed to be in that light.

Suffering can bend & break us. But it can also break us open to become the persons God intended us to be. It depends on what we do with the pain. If we offer it back to God, He will use it to do great things in us & through us, because suffering is fertile... it an grow new life.

This is what I love about novels - both reading them and writing them. They jump into the abyss to be with you where you are.