Life is simply experience; for reasons not readily discerned, we attempt to go on.

Who are we but the stories we tell about ourselves, particularly if we accept them?

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.

I cannot think of a day in my life when the library didn’t exert a potent attraction for me, offering a sense of the specialness of each individual’s curiosity and his or her quest to satisfy it.

Nobody ever gets what they want when it comes to love.

The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal - to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can't end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves.

I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way.