“Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.”

“It will hurt." said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness.”

“Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.”

“Youre not a human being until you value something more than the life of your body. And the greater the thing you live and die for the greater you are.”

“This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?""I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?""Yes," she said."That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch ...”

“In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it'...”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”

“I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”