But life isn't neat the way a story is. And if you try to pretend it is, then you just make yourself unhappy, or screw yourself over.

The thing about memories wasn't that many of them inevitably faded, but that repeated recall of the ones you remembered burnished them into shining, gorgeous lies

As he drifted off, his father came to visit him, clothed in all his possible shapes.

Isn’t that the fantasy? If I go back in time, knowing what people back then didn’t know, then I can change history! But history made you what you are. And it’s bigger than any one man.

This is the last moment of contentment untainted by sorrow, when the brain hesitates before delivering the message to the heart that it knows it must.

I like Carson. I really like Carson. I can hand an idea to him that's still a little rough, and he can turn it over and tumble it and hand it back to me shining. And I can do the same for him.

But who, in these modern times, slept well?

I can’t comprehend why any black man with even a lick of sense would have the slightest bit of interest in time travel. Going backward in time? A black man? You have got to be out of your mind.

Later—how much later? Hard to tell. In times of tragedy clocks will trick you—Philip stood in the kitchen doorway.

If the worst thing a physicist could say about a statement is that it was “false, ” the best thing he could say is that it was “interesting.

She hadn't gone back in time. The idea was

For the hand of a beauty with honest words and sensibilities so mighty.“Though your mother and father had hoped for something more fragile (and flighty),

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.

Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.

My understanding of Chinese history is limited. So far, I have only scratched its surface; I wish I could find out more.

Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible.

Strider: Red hots dude. He'd ruin anything for a mouthful of those. Now pull over. William: Gummy Bears. You should have said so.

Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day.

We empower ourselves every time we accept responsibility for choosing the thoughts and feelings we act on.

Memories were moving pictures in which meaning was constantly in flux. They were stories people told themselves.

When the critics come around it's always too late.