I just finished Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad," which I think is a work of genius.

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.

Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.

I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.

The evening had turned sweet and blue.

Only fiction has the power to cross the mental barricades, to make strangers intelligible to each other, because it moves people's hearts as well as engaging their minds.

When people violate your values, they have excuses for doing so. For instance, they may misconceive your quest for responsiveness as being annoying...

Something that's seldom appreciated about me is that I am in sympathy with a great deal of what Marx wrote, except that I'm on the side of the bourgeoisie.

The worst mistake you can make is walking away from the person who actually stood there and waited for you.

Concentrate on the things that matter to you.

There's kind of an unwritten rule, Don't call your captain out at a Ryder Cup, win, loss or draw, you just don't.

A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.

Prayer immediately turns us into something greater than ourselves.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

I don't think there's anything to be admired in lying, cheating or philandering. But there might be something to be admired in not burning people at the stake because they have those weaknesses.