I write out of gratitude for all the books I have loved over the years.

I might not remember how the sky looked on any given day. I do remember, though, what it was like to be a boy beneath a sky.

I was also ready to believe, though, that whatever good things I had managed to set upright could topple at any second.

I suppose that when you're growing up, you're bound to reach an age when you feel buffeted by all the changes in your life, when either your mind begins outpacing your body or your body begins outpacing your mind and you're not quite in conversation with yourself anymore.

...When you die, the energy that kept you alive filters into the people you loved. Did you know that? It's like a fire you've tended all your life, and the sparks are all scattered into the wind.... That's why we survive as long as we do, because the people who loved us keep us going.

You have a pet theory, one you have been turning over for years, that life itself is a kind of Rube Goldberg device, an extremely complicated machine designed to carry out the extremely simple task of constructing your soul.

The books you love best - those are the immensity of the sea.