Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words.

I have done what people do, my life makes a reasonable showing. Can I go back to my books now?

what I love is slowness. Slow people, slow reading, slow traveling, slow eggs, and slow love. Everything good comes slow.

In books I found explicitly, flamboyantly, everything censored in life.

Getting away from being 'a good girl' is important because it's impossible to be a 'good girl' and a writer at the same time.

Reading. Reading was the stable backdrop against which my life was played.

How are we to spend our lives, anyway? That is the real question. We read to seek the answer, and the search itself--the task of a lifetime--becomes the answer.

Leave the dishes unwashed and the demands on your time unanswered. Be ruthless and refuse to do what people ask of you.

Nothing is as horrendous as imagining the times of happiness from an environment which is that of hell.

Parables, yes. We here are to lead life with woe. Tasting bitter.the Tai Chi instructor

Your life and how you experience it is entirely your making. Only if this absolutely sinks in, will you make the necessary changes.

In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times.

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations.

Do it from the heart or not at all.

Knowing yourself lets you understand others.

People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.

Permanent remorse about failing to do your human duty, in my opinion, can be worse than losing your life.

Having your second child, in case you were wondering, is a lot harder than having your first, except for those people who find it easier. I'm afraid I don't have the latest figures to confirm this.

Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.

When you're sick, nobody takes care of you like your mom.