Will Schwalbe

“Throughout her life, whenever Mom was sad or confuse or disoriented, she could never concentrate on television, she said, but always sought refuge in a book. Books focused her mind, calmed her, took her outside of herself; television jangled her nerves.”

“If you stayed at home, you might not get the opportunity to go to that place again. But if you went, you could always com back.”

“sThat’s enriched my life more than I can say. Of course you could do more—you can always do more, and you should do more—but still, the important thing is to do what you can, whenever you can.”

“Kabat-Zinn writes, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

“Oh, dear--did I forget to mention that you can, indeed, have it all, but you need a lot of help!”

“I particularly like that last phrase," Mom said. "About protecting your own happiness.”

“I think it's because it shows that people--or hobbits, as the case may be--can find strength they didn't know they had.”

“We would also have to say goodbye to the joy of watching this next generation soak up the massive quantities of love their grandmother would have given them, and seeing them learn that there was someone in the world who loved them as much as their parents did: a grandmother who was delighted by all their quirks and who thought they were the most amazing creatures on earth.”

“I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.”

“There are certain books that I mean to read and keep stacked by my bedside. I even take them on trips. Some of my books should be awarded their own frequent-flier miles, they've traveled so much. I take these volumes on flight after flight with the best of intentions and then end up reading anything and everything else. (Sky Mall! Golf Digest!)”

“In Gilead, the narrator's friend's son describes himself not as an atheist but in "state of categorical unbelief." He says, "I don't even believe God doesn't exist, if you see what I mean." I pointed this passage out to Mom and said it closely matched my own views--I just didn't think about religion.”

“It's not hard to read about death abstractly. I do find it tough when a character I love dies, of course. You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them.”

“I'm talking about those novels where the characters aren't really interesting and you don't care about them or anything they care about. It's those books I won't read anymore. There's too much else to read--books about people and things that matter, books about life and death.”

“Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.”

“He was the smartest and best-read person any of us had every known, but he wore his learning so lightly and had such curiosity about other people that he had the ability to make everyone around him feel smart and well-read.”

“I often forget that other people's stories aren't simply introductions to my own more engaging, more dramatic, more relevant, and better-told tales, but rather ends in themselves, tales I can learn from or repeat or dissect or savor.”

“What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?”

“If heathen prayers were indeed the best of all, then mine should count big time.”

“That's one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something we can all talk about when we don't want to talk about ourselves.”

“We all owe everyone for everything that happens in our lives. But it's not owing like a debt to one person--it's really that we owe everyone for everything. Our whole lives can change in an instant--so each person that keeps that from happening, no matter how small a role they play, is also responsible for all of it. Just by giving friendship and love, you keep the people around you from giving up--and each expression of friendship or love may be the one that makes all the difference.”

“books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose - electronic (even though that wasn't for her) or printed, or audio - is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in human conversation.”

“It's not that I liked lunacy for the sake of lunacy, but if a writer can truly surprise me without throwing logic completely out the window, then that writer has me for good. Most book surprises aren't surprising at all but follow a formula, like the dead body that's certain to lurch out of a wreck being explored by deep-sea divers in just about every book that involves wrecks and divers.”

“Everyone doesn't have to do everything," she told me. "People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. I've had so much pleasure from beautiful and challenging things created by other people, things I could never make or do. I wouldn't trade that for anything.”

“...the apartment is an oasis - of civility, kindness, and elegance.”

“Of course you could do more - you can always do more, and you should do more - but still, the important things is to do what you can, whenever you can. You just do your best, and that's all you can do. Too many people use the excuse that they don't think they can do enough, so they decide they don't have to to do anything. There's never a good excuse for not doing anything - even if it's just to sign something, or send a small contribution, or invite a newly settled refugee family over for Thanksgiving.”

“If I'd waited until I was well rested to read, I never would have read anything.”

“The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and not the few things that go wrong.”

“...two different kinds of Japanese psychotherapies, one based on getting people to stop using feelings as an excuse for their actions and the other based on getting people to practice gratitude.”

“That's one of the amazing things great books like this do - they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.”

“She felt whatever emotions she felt, but feeling was never a useful substitute for doing, and she never let the former get in the way of the latter. If anything, she used her emotions to motivate her and help her concentrate. The emphasis for her was always on doing what needed to be done.”

“...mindfulness - it isn't a trick or a gimmick. It's being present in the moment. When I'm with you, I'm with you. Right now. That's all. No more and no less.”

“The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention...”

“And if the book is too silly, I find that it's often because the writer doesn't really have anything to say - or there are no values. Or because the whole book is just a lead-up to a trick at the end. If you read the end first, you may have much less patience for wasting time with that kind of book. Even a well-written book can be silly and a waste of time.”

“It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are is God's providential arrangement - God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made our of them.”

“For this day only is ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow.”

“I like books. I don't read them. But I like them.”

“Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence.”

“Why did I always need to do something, like referring one person to another, just for the sake of doing something, when sometimes, perhaps, it was better to do nothing?”

“...books provided much-needed ballast - something we both craved, amid the chaos and upheaval...”

“If our family was an airline, Mom was the hub and we were the spokes. You rarely went anywhere nonstop; you went via Mom, who directed the traffic flow and determined the priorities: which family member was cleared for takeoff or landing. Even my father was not immune to Mom's scheduling, though he was given more leeway than the rest of us.”

“Books had always been a way for my mother and me to introduce and explore topics that concerned us but made us uneasy, and they had also always given us something to talk about when we were stressed or anxious.”

“We're all in the end-of-your-life book-club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one.”

“But it takes so little to help people, and people really do help each other, even people with very little themselves. And it’s not just about second chances. Most people deserve an endless number of chances.”

“The world is complicated,’ she added. ‘You don’t have to have one emotion at a time.”

“In December 2008, I had the book with me while we waited for Dr. O'Reilly. Mom had already finished it. Every time I put the book down to go grab some mocha, or check my email, or make a call, I returned to find Mom rereading it, sneakily wolfing down passages as though I'd left behind a bag of cookies, not a book, and she was scooping up crumbs behind my back.”

“Lahiri's characters, just like people all around us, are constantly telling each other important things, but not necessarily in words.”

“...when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.”

“One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places... But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but I can't feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it.”

“I will never be able to read my mothers favourite books without thinking of her - an when I pass them on or recommend them, I'll know that some of what made her goes with them; that some of my mother will live on in those readers, readers who may be inspired to love the way loved and do their own version of what she did in the world.”

“We all have a lot more to read than we can read and a lot more to do than we can do.”