freedom is anathema to dreams nurtured in captivity.

Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful.

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.

If my mother hadn't tried to sell me chicken Kiev cutlets for $1.40 after I graduated from college, maybe I would've been the lawyer she wanted me to be.

You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.

Forget the fountain of youth, pal of mine. You can live to be a thousand, and it won't matter. Mediocrities like you deserve immortality.

If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.

The primary thing that determines how effective your life is how you carry out your calling

Everyone needs a helping hand, You just have to offer it.

Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.

Your own hands falling out to catch youbefore you hit the ground. All the waysyou save yourself even when youdon't want to.Love is the way your body fights tokeep you alive.Day after day after day.

I didn't want to make a record that was just guitar and voice, that was just the technology available to me. At the time, I remember thinking, "I am making a Faust album." That didn't translate.

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.

You can't pander to your audience. You might in the short term, but ultimately you can't hoodwink them, either.

Temperate anger well becomes the wise.

Houses, like faces, hide all kinds of memories.

Everyone worships something. The only choice you get is what to worship.