My home was in a pleasant place outside of Philadelphia. But I really lived, truly lived, somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books.

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.

In life, you need either inspiration or desperation.

Whenever man attempts to do what he knows to be the Master's will, a power will be given him equal to the duty.

In a retreat the lame are formost. [In a retreat the lame are foremost.]

I got good notice from that show, and on the last day of filming Townies, Twentieth Century Fox called wanting to meet with me about a development deal.

My wife has them all in a vault... a copy of every album.

...I am much better now at ambiguities.

I'm full of curiosity.

I liked the banana-seat bikes with the high handlebars - maybe a card in the wheel could have been part of it.

Take time for good books; time to absorb the thoughts of poets and philosophers, seers and prophets.