I learned that books could be collected, that they were important enough to keep and that a story that seemed to be over could be part of a bigger one.

Can we really be friends with those who don't love the books that we do? Of course we can, but can we really be friends with those who don't love any books? I'm not so sure of that.

That's what reading was for my mother, and became for me - a way to escape, a private time machine, a place that began with moral instruction but soon morphed into empathy and imagination.

I realised that reading was the key that opened the door to secret lands, strange places and the worlds behind other people's eyes.

That's what is so precious in reading this way - you can plumb the depths of another's experience while sitting still with a book in your hands.

My dad knows how to tell a story. He'd make me laugh by doing all the different voices.

Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.

When people ask me what's my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.

I think what makes someone pretty amazing is being comfortable in your own skin.

My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."

I always travel with my bike and it has become a little more difficult to do it nowadays, but I stick it in 3,5 by 6-foot case and wheel that thing in.

You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.

In Puritan thinking, the Christian life was a heroic venture, requiring a full quota of energy.

Science is the most reliable guide for civilization, for life, for success in the world. Searching a guide other than the science is meaning carelessness, ignorance and heresy.

Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe.