Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

You can't know about marriage until you try it.

There's a feeling that strength is determined by the size of a union. That clearly is nonsense.

It's not really that much of a big deal - you brush it off and you come back. Defeat is the secret ingredient to success.

Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.

A world is a circumscribed portion of sky... it is a piece cut off from the infinite.

The very fact that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair, and just God loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing.

Honey, I just forgot to duck.

To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're overdoing it.

You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated.

I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.