“Now, 75 years [after To Kill a Mockingbird], in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.[Open Letter, O Magazine, July 2006]”

“I have finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book.”

“If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.”

“But, whatever the magic, I wasn’t smarter than chemistry, and after a while, I heard two people talking in the empty room next door, their whispers coming out of the phone jack.”

“No camera, no recording device, no laptop, none of this palm pilot nonsense or a cell phone. Paper and pencil, a book, maybe a bilingual dictionary. Anything beyond that (a) can be stolen, and (b) intimidates people you encounter. The more double-A batteries you carry, the more you distance yourself from the people you're writing about.”

“When I feel like shoveling in food, the emptiness can be filled only with love(April 2012, O Magazine)”