Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.

Some people, when desperate, retreat to pills or hard liquor. I nap.

There is something underwhelming about scholarly hate mail - the sad literary allusions, the refusal to use contractions.

After a dream like that, you're grateful that it was just a dream, that no matter how bad your actual life, it couldn't be worse than your dream life.

Oh no, " I said, because if our life is just one endless song about hope and regret, then "oh no" is apparently that song's chorus, the words we always return to.

This helping-people business was an attractive idea, I'll admit, because up to now I'd not done much more than be, and when I wasn't just being, I'd caused some pain, too.

Truth doesn't pay homage to creeds. Creeds must adjust themselves to be compatible with the truth.

Legend remains victorious in spite of history.

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity.

Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.

I tell myself he's better than he makes himself out to be, but, Tessa, what if he isn't?

A sense of humor is an important thing to have because when you get into an argument, one of the best ways to diffuse it is to be funny.

It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

Miserable is a good thing, though. If you start the day miserable, nobody else can screw up your day.

Mediocre men sometimes fear great office, and when they do not aim at it, or when they refuse it, all that is to be concluded is that they are aware of their mediocrity.

The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues.