“Who is the brave man--he who feels no fear? If so, then bravery is but a polite term for a mind devoid of rationality and imagination.”

“I wonder where he lies. Wedged under a rock, with a thousand small mouths already sucking on his spongy flesh. Or floating still, on and down, on and down, to wider, calmer reaches of the river. I ...”

“To know a man's library is, in some measure, to know a man's mind.”

“You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.”

“I reached for her, pushing back the fall of hair-it was heavy and thick and smooth to the touch-and tilted her chin so that the moonlight shone on her wet face. We married each other that night, th...”

“Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be ...”

“There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sp...”

“My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are...”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”