Books, and especially fiction, do not proceed from ideas. They are born from feelings

If I canot know your name, may I light a lamp so I can see your face?' If you sould ever see my face, you will lose me forever.' Why?' Psyche wanted to know. 'Are you ugly? Are you afraid I won't love you if I see your face?' Perhaps I am afraid that if you see my face, it will be THAT that you will love and not me.' I understand, believe me. I know what that feels like.

Faith is not something that one has; faith is something that one practices at the very moment in your life when you really don't believe anything, and you're in the worst kind of despair.

The failure of modern living is the failure of the imagination...Literature is the royal road that enables us to enter the realm of the imagination.

Being a failure at living your own life as best as you can is better than being a success living the life somebody else says you should live.

Goodness was not a trait you acquired; it was a value you practiced when you were on the verge of doing evil.

...part of the mind's job was to cast doubt on what the heart knew to be true, and the heart, because it had no words, often lost the argument