... and Lynn is dead inside, like a corpse. She Instagrams methodically, clinically, as if she's gathering evidence for defense, like her entire life is dedicated to proving that she has a life.

The problem with books is that they end.

I'm the same way about the bookshop. You know, I walk around and I feel the whole world is in there, the most important stories of all time.

Your lips were made for mine, Beck. You are the reason I have a mouth, a heart.

If we were teenagers, I could kiss you. But I’m on a platform behind a counter wearing a name tag and we’re too old to be young.

we’re too old to be young.

You are a monster, deathly, solipsistic to the bone and you’re blasphemous because all you want is You

In the cage, you feel loved, not trapped. Just like me.

I fold my hands under my head and tell the books all about you. They listen, Beck. I know it sounds crazy, but they do.

and if anyone was ever going to live eternally in the light, I think it would be you.

What a shame to be so angered by what you don't have that you treat what you do have like it's nothing.

But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for his head.

You cannot surprise an individual more than twice with the same marvel

The true tragedy in most people’s lives is that they are far better than they imagine themselves to be and, as a result, end up being much less than they might be.

Love isn't decent. Love is glorious and shameless.

Often how you define the problem will determine whether or not you're able to find a real solution.

To silence the Voice of God is damnation in time!

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

I have so much respect for my opponents; many of them watched the races as little children and were supporting me!

I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.

And I was lucky enough to have teachers that really, really looked out for me and really encouraged all that. And in rural Louisiana, that was a rare thing back then.