“Recognizing the structure of your psychology doesn't mean that you can easily rebuild it.”

“I studied psychology in school, and the best psychology is in literature. It's so much easier to understand a character than a theory. You can recognize yourself—or other people—in a different way.”

“You are a god. To me, at least. It doesn't matter how easily you can be killed, how much Breath you have, or how you look. It has to do with who you are and what you mean.”

“Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.”

“Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meaning bolted to it. If history doesn't become story, it dies to everyone except the historian.”

“You can be happy for someone else's good fortune but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.”