We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.

Reading forces you to be quiet in a world that no longer makes place for that.

Meriwether Lewis's last words were, 'I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.' I don't doubt that it is, but it cannot be much harder than being left behind.

My heart is really pounding," I said. "That's how you know you're having fun," Margo said.

And he was feeling not-unique in the very best possible way.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

Nothing really mattered that much, not the good things and not the bad ones. We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous.