It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal - otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again.

This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.

Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.

Go for long walks, indulge in hot baths, Question your assumptions, be kind to yourself, live for the moment, loosen up, scream, curse the world, count your blessings, Just let go, Just be.

There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.

Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.

nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music

Anyone's childhood can be an act of disablement if rehearsed and replayed and squinted at in a certain light. . .

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her.

I'm naturally an optimist, but my basis for hope is rooted in my understanding of human nature.

I'm not a big theory person. So when I get asked questions that demand serious statements, I just make it up.

Selfishness even binds many people, but blindly without having any liking for one another.

I have not yet begun to defile myself.

Those who cannot condemn the past repeat it in order to remember it.

I'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal establishment, too. Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running.

The only use she has for the word fun is to make the word funeral.

I started my own class for people like me who can't find any place else to go.

Jason scratched his head. "You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, ‘festus’ means ‘happy’? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?

If you do not use a muscle or any part of the body, it tends to become atrophic. So is the case with the brain. The more you use it, the better it becomes.