A faint smell of lilac filled the air. There was always lilac in this part of town. Where there were grandmothers, there was always lilac.

If we weigh the significance of a book by the effect it has on its readers, then the great children's books suddenly turn up very high on the list.

Adventure,' then, is what might otherwise be called hardship if it were attempted in a different spirit. Turning a difficult task or a perilous journey into an adventure is largely a matter of telling yourself the right story about it, which is one thing that Lewis's child characters have learned from reading, 'the right books.

Maybe everything really does just have an expiration date--one that you can't see until she tells you she's leaving, and then she's gone.

The first book we fall in love with shapes us every bit as much as the first person we fall in love with.

People like to complain about the state of contemporary literature, but I can only assume they don't read it very widely.

It was a completely new feeling for me–like someone had just released a million, tiny butterflies loose in my stomach, and they were feverishly flying up into my head and making me lose my mind.