“If only my mother had a book to hold, she wouldn't have looked so lonely. And maybe this was another reason why people read: not so they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.”

“...Maybe this was another reason why people read: not so that they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.”

“When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.”

“When he did that, I didn't hate him anymore, I really didn't, and maybe this is why people do so many hateful things to the people that who love them: because it's so easy to stop hating someone if you've already started loving them.”

“All of this made me feel better about myself, and I was grateful to the books for teaching me-without my even having to read them- that there were people in the world more desperate, more self-absorbed, more boring than I was. - about memoirs”

“For years, my mother must have hated Deirdre; for years she must have wished her dead. And now that Deirdre was dead, my mother looked no different than she had when she thought Deirdre was alive - not guilty, nor relieved, nor happy. How was this possible? How could my mother know Deirdre was dead and still look at the world as if it were the same world, at the fire as if it were the same fire? But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company”

“... he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing — or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need, but don't and can't get anyway.”