The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold.

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being.

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion.

A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

The freedom of affluence opposes and contradicts the freedom of community life.

Emotional security is just as important as financial security.

That society exists to frustrate the individual may be seen from its attitude to work. It is only morally acceptable if you do not want to do it. If you do want to, it becomes a personal pleasure.

It's fun because you can escape and learn about what other people's minds have created. It inspires you to think maybe you could come up with a creature yourself. I like that.

People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture.

One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.

Dark matter has a gravitation effect on other objects. You can't see it, you can't feel it, but you can watch something being pulled in its direction.

Temperament, like liberty, is important despite how many crimes are committed in its name.

America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.