“Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.”

“There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. ”

“I realize that people still read books now and some people actually love them, but in 1946 in the Village our feelings about books--Im talking about my friends and myself--went beyond love. It was ...”

“A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall. Books perfume and give weight to a room. A bookcase is as good as a view, as the sight of a city or a river. There are da...”

“The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral port”

“Travel is like adultery; one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live...in our wanderlust, we are lovers loo...”

“The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult--to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization--not to sound either defens...”

“I don't understand how I can always want to sleep, hate waking up, and yet be afraid of death.”

“Feminism is an endeavor to change something very old, widespread, and deeply rooted in many, perhaps most, cultures around the world, innumerable institutions, and most households on Earthand in ou...”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”