..books look as if they contain knowledge, while e-readers look as if they contain information.

Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.

Start with the notion that yours is the sole responsibility unless there's powerful evidence to the contrary

...God knows you can have complication and difficulty without any compensating depth or seriousness

But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.