Libraries are sexual dream factories. The langour brings it on.

Demonstration of mastery gives a feeling of power and that feeling of power is a good feeling.

Good books, written by men or women, are ones in which you lose consciousness of the person writing the sentences.

Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

Like countless first-year medical students, immersed in the symptoms of one disease after another, I am alert to the tingles and pangs, the throbs and quivers of my mortal body, each one of which is potentially a sign of the end.

A book is a collaboration between the one who reads and what is read and, at its best, that coming together is a love story like any other.

Great books are the ones that are urgent, life-changing, the ones that crack open the reader’s skull and heart.