The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult.

Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.

You never came out the way you came in.

God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue.

We are supposed to be on the side of goodness in the sense that we need it, not that we are it.

I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.

What follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography, for the words we take into ourselves help to shape us.

When I'm tired and therefore indecisive, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth.

Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing as day-dreaming.

When you ignore your gift, you runaway from your purpose.

I don’t care what other people think about me. Most people are idiots, and they can think whatever they want.

THE LAW OF THE CONTRACTION: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.

It is easy to take good pictures, difficult to take very good pictures, and almost impossible to take great pictures.

You must want! You have the right to ask! You must desire.

Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams.

A stylist might say you look amazing in anything. Your family will always tell you if you look a complete idiot.

There are always generic terms like 'Americana', but there are no boundaries as to where it can go.

Our culture is biased against quiet and reserved people, but introverts are responsible for some of humanity's greatest achievements.

A dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses.