“Moving the kids was not a good idea, but I sure wanted to see nuns in monster trucks plowing their way through a blizzard.”

“Books were this wonderful escape for me because I could open a book and disappear into it, and that was the only way out of that house when I was a kid. ”

“Always, the eye sees more than the mind can comprehend, and we go through life self-blinded to much that lies before us. We want a simple world, but we live in a magnificently complex one, and rather than open ourselves to it, we perceive the world through filters that make it less daunting.”

“If this was the best wine that Jim and Nora could afford or, worse, if this was their idea of a good wine - well, sadly, then they were better off dead.”

“But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.”

“The only way we'll be saved is if we save ourselves. Good people can't triumph over bad people just by being good; they have to act.”

“I am no theologian. I would not be surprised, however, if Heaven proved to be a cozy kitchen, where delicious treats appeared in the oven and in the refrigerator whenever you wanted them, and where the cupboards were full of good books.”