Where was the middle ground between a sense of adventure and just plain sense?

I want that which is hilarious and that which is heartbreaking to occupy the same territory in the book because I think they very often occupy the same territory in life, much as we try to separate them.

Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.

I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is.

The line of gray along the horizon is brighter now, and with the coming light I feel a certainty: that there is, despite our wild imaginings, only one life. The ghostly others, no matter how real they seem, no matter how badly we need them, are phantoms. The one life we're left with is sufficient to fill and refill our imperfect hearts with joy, and then to shatter them. And it never, ever lets up.

There are a great many sins in this world, none of them original.

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