“He lost himself in the words and images conjured in his mind and for a while forgot ... He found himself flying among stars and planets ...”

“Now he knew that any memories he might cherish during the last years of his life would be only fictions from a biography he'd never lived.”

“[H]e lay awake, dreading the dawn when he would have to say good-bye to the small universe he had built for himself over the years.”

“1My father says a hunch is your brain’s way of taking a short cut to the truth,’ replied Max.‘He’s a wise man, your father. What else does he say?’‘That the more you try to hide from the truth, the...”

“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”

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”

“And you asked why people always expected you to smile in photographs. And I told you it was because they hoped that in the future, there would be something to smile about”

“Many cultures accept the faulty nature of memory. They know even the photograph only gets it halfway right. They believe there is only one way to bring the dead back to life, story.”

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”