Not until I came to Canada did I realize that snow was a four-letter word.

Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.

Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.

I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.

I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.

Every library is a library of preferences, and every chosen category implies an exclusion.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

Unicorns, dragons, witches may be creatures conjured up in dreams, but on the page their needs, joys, anguishes, and redemptions should be just as true as those of Madame Bovary or Martin Chuzzlewit.

One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.

I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own.It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.

In Russia I went to a great yeshiva, and in America I work in a carnival.

Living in New Zealand, it's like a different world - it is a different world. It's very, very cool.

That was clearly a tackle aimed at getting revenge - or maybe it was just out-and-out retribution.

Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.

To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.

I went to an all-girls private school, where we played field hockey and lacrosse.

I have consciously not taken the role of a gangster, which has been offered to me far too many times.

You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.

I been through some junk. It ain't all been peaches and cream.