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

The logic: Reading is a private pursuit, one that often takes place behind closed doors. A young lady might retreat with a book, might even take it into her boudoir, and there, reclining on here silken sheets, imbibing the thrills and chills manufactured by writerly quills, one of her hands, one not absolutely needed to grip the little volume, might wander. The fear, in short, as one-handed reading. [p. 146]

Many writers over the centuries simply do not have the reputations they deserve because they were female, and that is an act of suppression.

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

I've often thought that one of us is what we imagine, that each of us normalizes the terrible strangeness of inner life with a variety of convenient fictions.

Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner.

Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.