“One of Mom's favorite passages from Gilead was: "This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another pe...”

“It was the women of afghanistan,my mother believed,who-once theyd been granted access to books and education- would be the salvation of the country”

“I think it's because it shows that people--or hobbits, as the case may be--can find strength they didn't know they had.”

“That's one of the amazing things great books like this do - they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.”

“The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and not th...”

“I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.”

“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”

“Men are not gentle and graceful beings solely oriented towards good. They are physical, coarse, contradictory, stretched between desires and temptations. In an unnatural wish to make them sinless a...”

“Lie down beside these watersThat bubble from the spring;Hear in the desert silenceThe desert sparrow sing;Draw from the shapeless momentSuch pattern as you can;And cleave henceforth to Beauty;Expec...”

“The motives of mankind are plainer than the motions they produce.”