“A sailor chooses the wind that takes the ship from a safe port. Ah, yes, but once you're abroad, as you have seen, winds have a mind of their own. Be careful, Charlotte, careful of the wind you cho...”

“I took a deep breath. 'For you I've got something better than love.'What's that?'I...trust you.'Why?'You'll never hurt me.'Thank you.'But...'But, what?'I said, 'That means I'll hurt you.'Why?' 'Cau...”

“Then the silence came back, that awful silence that seemed to just take over.In that silence I kept hearing what I had said--heard it repeating itself over and over again like a stuck record. I wan...”

“The greater a man's - or boy's - ignorance of the world, the more certain he is that he sits in the center of that world.”

“It's said truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth a friend, not a stranger.”

“Writing takes a lot of patience. It usually takes me a year to write a book. One time, it took me 14 years to write a book, not that I worked on it every day.”

“You should never wish for wishful thinking.”

“What you desire is what you want, what you have is what Allah wants.”

“Most people say if you tell a wish it won't come true. But I don't think wishes work like that. I don't believe there's some bad-tempered wish-fairy with a clipboard, checking off whether or not yo...”