“We were both smiling, in that bittersweet way one does when imagining something the heart longs for and the head would dread.”

“But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into...”

“The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg...”

“Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust.”

“To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group.”

“His absence seemed a solid thing, a burden I must carry in addition to my grief... Yet I knew I would continue to live. Sometimes that knowledge seemed the worst part of my loss.”

“Dont feel ashamed of working hard! Believe that things will change.”

“Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out.”

“Hearts will break and people will hurt you, darling. Her mother said. But when you let those people control your outlook on the life, you only allow them to have a greater hold on your happiness. O...”

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

“Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back... I'm telling you.”

“The two go hand in hand like a dance: chance flirts with necessity, randomness with determinism. To be sure, it is from this interchange that novelty and creativity arise in Nature, thereby yieldin...”

“Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.”

“Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepant...”

“The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything...”