What I really mean is that a great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.

Through the healing process of time-and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases-most people survive depression which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.

We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.

I thought there's something to be said for honor in this world where there doesn't seem to be any honor left. I thought that maybe happiness wasn't really anything more than the knowledge of a life well spent, in spite of whatever immediate discomfort you had to undergo, and that if a life well spent meant compromises and conciliations and reconciliations, and suffering at the hands of the person you love, well then better that than live without honor.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

This was not judgment day - only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.