Love - true love - is a precious thing. It is painful, uncomfortable, makes fools of us all, but it is what breathes meaning and color and purpose into our lives.

We are who we are, be­cause of those we choose to love and be­cause of those who love us.

I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history.

Free and fair access to books - to reading - is a right and one we should fight for.

The dead leave their shadows, an echo of the space within which once they lived. They haunt us, never fading or growing older as we do. The loss we grieve is not just their futures but our own.

For when all else is done, on­ly words re­main. Words en­dure.

What we leave behind in this life is the memory of who we were and what we did. An imprint, no more.

Pas a pas, se va luenh. Step by step, we make our way.

There comes always a moment when the desire to act, however ill the cause, is stronger than the wish to listen.

Actually, I can write anywhere - airport lounges, in bed, on a rattling train going north.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.

But should you ever come to a time when you need to say something upon my behalf, say this, 'The last truth is that there is no magic.

People would rather live in homes regardless of its grayness. There is no place like home.

There are no shortcuts in evolution.

The reasons that drive me to write are many and the most important are the most secret, I think. Perhaps most of all this: to put something out of death's reach.

If you open the armpits, the brain becomes light. You cannot brood or become depressed.

It is an intimately communicative affair between the painter and his painting, a conversation back and forth, the painting telling the painter even as it receives its shape and form.

I want my tombstone to read: If this is a joke, I don't get it.

Do not blame God for your stupid decisions.

America is just downright mean.

The Self cannot leave You. Awareness cannot leave You. Everything else will leave You. But Awareness is what You Are.