“I hear what many of you are saying: We don’t have the time, we are busy. Well Nobody Has Time, Everyone Is Busy. In the time it took you to read this post, your life just got a minute shorter. That is precisely why we read (and why some of us write): because life is short and finite, we want more, and literature is the distillation of all those lives we will not lead.”

“We read because we are essentially alone.”

“What exactly did we learn in kindergarten? Nothing we wouldn't have learned if we;d stayed home. Okay, we learned that sometimes, by the time you get to the bathroom, it's too late.”

“It’s not words that fail, it’s the people who wield them. We have no power over life and death, we are subject to pain and disease and misery, but we command words. When you think about it, words are all we really have.”

“These days when we speak of politics at all it is with indifference, anger, or "Please, could we talk about something that doesn't make us nauseous?" But there was a time when we could discuss government with hope, pride, and trust in our leaders, and that was when Corazon Aquino was president.”

“That's the thing about a great book. Every time you read it, it's different, because you're different. You've changed since the last time you picked it up, things have happened to you.”

“We have no control over fate and history, but we can control how we conduct ourselves in this life.”