“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.”

“Our country is the best country in the world. We are swimming in prosperity and our President is the best president in the world. We have larger apples and better cotton and faster and more beautif...”

“I dream that someone in space says to me: So let us rush, then, to see the world. It is shaped like an egg, covered with seas and continents, warmed and lighted by the sun. It has churches of indes...”

“I write to make sense of my life."-John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey”

“For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed...”

“Fiction is meant to illuminate, to explode, to refresh.”

“Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can'...”

“It always struck me in years after how bizarre it was, how two people could look at one another with such tenderness and complete love, and how quickly that could dissolve into nothing but bitterness.”

“Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.”

“Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.”

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

“I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myse...”

“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”