“People only go to the places they have visited first in their minds," she says, uttering the phrase as if secrets to the universe have just been shared. "Perhaps that is how learning can help you. ...”

“But literature is unique. To understand literature, you read it with your head, but you interpret it with your heart. The two are forced to work together-and, quite frankly, they often don't get al...”

“One of the first lessons that I hope you grasp is that woven into meaningful literature, so tightly that it can't be separated, is a telling lesson, even in stories as short as this one.""Always?" ...”

“Literature is a cake with many toys baked inside-and even if you find them all, if you don't enjoy the path that leads you to them, it will be a hollow accomplishment. There was a playwright named ...”

“It's dangerous because my thoughts get away from themselves. Mixed with emotion, they pile up like the garbage that surrounds me. They stack layer upon layer, deeper and deeper, month after month- ...”

“I tell Ki that I'm learning about words and stories to help our family. He says he's protecting our family with his knife. Who is right? Which is best, protecting with words or with his knife?" Sh...”

“Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.”

“Most of us must learn to love people and use things rather than loving things and using people.”

“So I was communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way, it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way. Instead, I felt like I was doing what every soul i...”

“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...”

“There are many different stories to tell. It's never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is a...”

“I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later...”

“All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.All of them?Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, cap...”