We touched with a softness that pushed through the skin into memory, like arms plunged into a river - we could feel the weight of each other's stones.

I read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.

The present grows within the boundaries of the past.

The passions we cannot control are the ones that define us.

Language allows us to reach out to people, to touch them with our innermost fears, hopes, disappointments, victories. To reach out to people we'll never meet. It's the greatest legacy you could ever leave your children or your loved ones: The history of how you felt.

Everything that we love will, at some point, be taken away from us. If I think about everyone I love eventually being taken away from me by death, or simply by getting lost from each other in the world, it makes me value them much more now. And I'm much less likely to be indifferent. For me, indifference is the end of life.

Love requires imagination more than experience.