The scroll is coming back (Twitter is a scroll.)

I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.

Some travelers think they want to go to foreign places but are dismayed when the places turn out actually to be foreign.

Love is giving, marriage is buying and selling. You can't put love into a contract.

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.