You can be interested in a Jane Smiley novel whether or not anyone says a word. She enters into her characters thoughts with great understanding and depth.

You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.

I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.

That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most disturbing personal truths and gnawing fears.

Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view.

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.