If an author was a god, then he was a very poor second-rate one, scrabbling around in the foothills of Olympus.

They were lucky. They'd been given history.

And with a massive roar the fifth wall comes down and the house of fiction falls, taking Viola and Sunny and Bertie with it. They melt into thin air and disappear. Pouf!

Popular versus literary—a false divide?

All the birds who were never born, all the songs that were never sung and so can only exist in the imagination.And this one is Teddy's.

Oh, man, ‘the nursery, ’ ” Dominic said, “what a hell-hole. If I had kids I’d give them the nicest room in the house.”“You do have kids, ” his kid said.“Oh, yeah, well, right, you know what I mean.

was there a store somewhere full of unwanted secrets?

Secrets had the power to kill a marriage, she said. Nonsense, Sylvie said, it was secrets that could save a marriage.

Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

Take love to people and teach them to abide by the principles of God

Pivotal changes occur with every period of time

You have to be silent, but ready

One Fails Before One Perception...!

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.

A premature attempt to explain something that thrills you will destroy your perceptivity rather than increase it, because your tendency will be to explain away rather than seek out.

To the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

I believe in permanent revolution.

Everytime you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart.

Life without music is meaningless, music without life is academic.