“In our modern age, there are writers who have heaped scorn on the very idea of the primacy of story. I'd rather warm my hands on a sunlit ice floe than try to coax fire from the books they carve fr...”

“The writing of novels is one of the few ways I have found to approach the altar of God and Creation itself. You try to worship God by performing the singularly courageous and impossible favor of kn...”

“Here's what I love: when a great writer turns me into a Jew from Chicago, a lesbian out of South Carolina, or a black woman moving into a subway entrance in Harlem. Turn me into something else, wri...”

“Over the years, my church gave me passage into a menagerie of exotic words unknown in the South: "introit," "offertory," "liturgy," "movable feast," "the minor elevation," "the lavabo," "the appari...”

“The most powerful words in English are, "Tell me a story.”

“Hurt is a great teacher, maybe the greatest of all.”

“Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”

“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.”