They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

The world was hers for the reading.

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.

She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered 'different.' She did not suffer too much.

Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.

But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.

Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.

Francie, huddled with other children of her kind, learned more that first day than she realized. She learned of the class system of a great Democracy.

Marriage is one sweet way in which one can taste heaven on earth. Similarly, I can also become hell on earth.

There are souls in this world who have the gift of finding joy everywhere, and leaving it behind them when they go.

It's certainly my honor to be able to, hopefully, change the world a tiny bit, one mind at a time.

Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.

When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man.

I spend a lot of time alone and my wife understands that I need to be alone. I enjoy being alone. But I'm never lonely.

While beer brings gladness, don't forget That water only makes you wet!

My best friend just had a baby, and she's my age. So I'm a godmom now, which is crazy.

Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.

Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.