“We all give up great expectations along the way.”

“I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die.”

“It is a part of our nature to survive. Faith is an instinctive response to aspects of existence that we cannot explain by any other means, be it the moral void we perceive in the universe, the cert...”

“Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and ...”

“Senor Sempere believed that God lives, to a smaller or greater extent, in books, and that is why he devoted his life to sharing them, to protecting them, and to making sure their pages, like our me...”

“Do you know what religion is, Martin, my friend?-I can barely remember Lord's Prayer.-A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through ...”

“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.”

“I live alone," he said simply. "I live in the open. I hear the waves at night and see the black patterns of the pine boughs against the sky. With sound and silence and color and solitude, of course...”

“It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mu...”