“Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.”

“I m not about to tell him that I am just like Anna and Emma, an adulteress. My books are my secret lovers, the friends I run to to get away from the daily drudgeries of life, to try out something new, and yes, to get away, for a few hours, from him. He doesn't need to know that my books are the affairs I don't have. ”

“You know you're in a bad patch when the most interesting part of the book you're reading is the acknowledgments page.”

“Explaining the moment of connection between a reader and book to someone who's never experienced it is like trying to describe sex to a virgin.”

“...if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself.”

“But my subconscious mind--the part I've heard writers call the lizard brain--could and did: it told me to reach for Anne Lamott or Edith Wharton or Calvin Trillin instead. And if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself.”

“When things go right, I read. When things go wrong, I read more.”