Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket, or flexible paperback.

There's always something new by looking at the same thing over and over.

In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.

A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.

Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.

It's great to have an enemy. Sharpens your senses.

Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.