I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?

At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it.

When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

The love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones. But I want to stage the setting. I want to direct all scenes.

I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives.

There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers.

Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you.