“Why do you think people stopped reading? We read to connect with other minds. But why read when you're busy writing, describing the fine-grained flotsam of your own life. Compulsively recording eve...”

“People become so obsessed with the future, they make it up.”

“The secretary of education recently unveiled an initiative for curriculums to place more emphasis on history and language. Within the decade, proficiency in at least three languages will be require...”

“Words, then, are born of worlds. But they also take us places we cant go: Constantinople and Mars, Valhalla, the Planet of the Apes. Language comes from what weve seen, touched, loved, lost. And it...”

“Words dont always work. Sometimes they come up short. Conversations can lead to conflict. There are failures of diplomacy. Some differences, for all the talk in the world, remain irreconcilable. Pe...”

“Language may have limits. But it isnt just a dim likeness in a mirror. Yes, gestures, glances, touches, taps on walls mean something. So do silences. But sometimes the word is the thing. The bridge...”

“I like to reinvent myself its part of my job.”

“We can combat existential anguish the unbearable lightness of our being in a variety of ways. We can choose to work, play, destroy, or create. We can allow a variety of cultural factors or other ...”

“People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.”

“Take care of your words and the words will take care of you.”

“A word and everything is saved.A word and all is lost.”

“I got well by talking. Death could not get a word in edgewise, grew discouraged, and traveled on.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”