“Books -- they come home hot in your hands and then by increments they warm your life, like heated bricks in a New England bed.”

“Count calories if you like, but go ahead and gorge yourself on books. What have you got to lose but a small mind?”

“Let your children see you kiss. Let them see you embrace. Let them overhear your teasing, your gentle rebukes, even your well-intentioned jealousy. Domestic courtship reinforces the notion that people are together because they want to be together, not because it is the decent, practical thing to do.”

“No matter what our age, we ought to never stop eating books, for books are the feast of the imagination.”

“The American home has become the noisiest place of utter silence on earth.”

“Condemnation feels good and it is now a staple of religion, politics, and the media (both left and right), but it changes nothing. Compassion, on the other hand, changes everything. (p. 121)”

“...the ongoing suspicion that scientific discoveries or rigorous biblical scholarship will undermine faith is a tacit admission that faith is threatened by knowledge, because it is ultimately constructed on weak or faulty assumptions and, like the proverbial house of cards, needs to be "protected" from collapsing. (p. 21)”