“more than a half million books, all of them smelling like dust and ink, two terrible smells that blend mystically to make something beautiful. Powells is another church to me, a paperback sort of h...”

“ I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save G...”

“Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.”

“I know, from the three visits I made to him, the blended composite of love and fear that exists only in a boy's notion of his father.”

“I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office su...”

“And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have see...”

“Above all, readers want useful information, whether from a road sign or an investment guide. This motive is not completely absent even in readers of fiction, although few people read Madame Bovary ...”

“Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story w...”

“In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.”

“Crap. I was hopin all things ugly had been raptured, but youre still muckin up the planet.We must share the same faith, honey. Cause beauty checked out when you showed up.”

“Sometimes in the winter, when the fog rolled in and silenced the waves, it felt as if death had its fingers around my neck. Fingers like frostbitten twigs that made me ache inside.”

“Do as little harm to others as you can; make any sacrifice for your true friends; be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; and grab all the fun you can. Don't give much thought to yes...”

“As far as I can reckon, a woman can stand absolutely anything under God's heaven that she knows; but she just up and can't stand the littlest, teeniest, no-account sort of thing that she ain't sure...”

“Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.”

“If you just watch a teenager, you see a lot of uncertainty.”