“Trying to read slowly when you haven't had time to read is like holding back hunger. It's like having a meal in front of you and knowing you should be polite and use a fork, when all you really want to do is lean over and shovel it in with both hands.”

“Love? Love is like holding water in your hands. You might have it for a time, but it escapes, leaving you with nothing.”

“I just think people forget what it feels like to really be in love, you know? Like when that’s the only thing in the world that matters. I just don’t want to decide it’s not that important.”

“If you've ever read one of those articles that asks notable people to list their favorite books, you may have been impressed or daunted to see them pick Proust or Thomas Mann or James Joyce. You might even feel sheepish about the fact that you reread Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings, or The Catcher in the Rye or Gone With the Wind every couple of years with some much pleasure. Perhaps, like me, you're even a little suspicious of their claims, because we all know that the books we've loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly - or the ones we'd most like other people to think we read over and over again.”

“There's always time to read. Don't trust a writer who doesn't read. It's like eating food prepared by a cook who doesn't eat.”

“That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct.”

“I enjoyed reading when I was a boy, but these days, I read all the time and it has rather taken the pleasure out of it for me. When I am at leisure, reading is the last thing I want to do.”“That makes sense, I suppose. But for me, reading is an adventure. It makes me an armchair traveler and takes me places I shall never be able to go.”