As always, one of her books was next to her.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

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

Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.

Even death has a heart.

We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.

I've learned... That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

Well... you know, I would wake up with a terrible hangover in a jail somewhere and worst part was that I would not know why I was there.

Justice is always Violence to the Party offending, for every Man is Innocent in his own Eyes.

It also is true that some ideas naturally work themselves out over a longer period of time than a single human life can encompass.

I'm not a doom-and-gloom person. But I think there is a difference between transcendence and denial, and much of the Western world is in major denial today.

Or will it take some cataclysmic act of violence on U.S. soil to finally awaken our gamesmen to the costs of global hegemony?

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.

I think that the art of marketing, the art of promotion and the art of storytelling is definitely elevated and we have to get better every year.

Eyes open, then," I say, tapping the skin between my eyebrows. I don’t really need her eyes to be on mine, but I feel better when they are.