My mother and I were like two continents moving slowly but inexorably apart; my father, the bridge builder, constantly extending the fragile edifice he had constructed to connect us.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

Of course I loved books more than people.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

Life is not a problem to be solved. It is an opportunity to love and unfold the beauty of life.

He didn’t ask himself if she was beautiful, because the physical effect of her presence made the question insignificant.

Folks in their 60s and 80s are reinventing how older people live.

The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.

My work is more important than I am. I'm just some guy.

I've also always known that I wouldn't be playing for the N.B.A.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.

It is troublesome sometimes when people get up in your face in public, you know? And say, 'How could you, how dare you?' Well, they don't know me.

Temperance is corporeal piety; it is the preservation of divine order in the body.

Laws are the silent assessors of God.