In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for?

Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.

Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.

I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye.

Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.

It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.

This was not of the nature of a Christlike lesson for Owen Meany to learn, as he lay in the manger, that someone you hate can give you a hard-on.