“Why do you think people stopped reading? We read to connect with other minds. But why read when you're busy writing, describing the fine-grained flotsam of your own life. Compulsively recording eve...”

“To create a word is simple. But to create a world to think thats hard.”

“People become so obsessed with the future, they make it up.”

“Words, then, are born of worlds. But they also take us places we cant go: Constantinople and Mars, Valhalla, the Planet of the Apes. Language comes from what weve seen, touched, loved, lost. And it...”

“Words dont always work. Sometimes they come up short. Conversations can lead to conflict. There are failures of diplomacy. Some differences, for all the talk in the world, remain irreconcilable. Pe...”

“Language may have limits. But it isnt just a dim likeness in a mirror. Yes, gestures, glances, touches, taps on walls mean something. So do silences. But sometimes the word is the thing. The bridge...”

“Education doesnt make you happy. Nor does freedom. We dont become happy just because were free if we are. Or because weve been educated if we have. But because education may be the means by which...”

“Because I trust in the ever-changing climate of the heart. (At least, today I feel that way.) I think it is necessary to have many experiences for the sake of feeling something; for the sake of bei...”

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

“The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.”

“We are not told, or not told early enough so that it sinks in, that mathematics is a language, and that we can learn it like any other, including our own. We have to learn our own language twice, f...”

“Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's any less true.”

“Oh, Sweetie. No one ever gets through their TBR list. For every book you finish, you'll add five more. That's just the way it works.”

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”