Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and remains one perfect symbol: the printed book.

Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul?

If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details.

Every love story is a potential grief story.

The more you learn, the less you fear.

Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.