“I don't know about you, but I only have one life, and I don't want to spend it in a sewer of injustice.”

“He comes down next to me, and when I hold out my hand, he takes it. Our fingers lace together. And in that feeling, that perfect feeling of our hands and fingers pressed together, I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him about Josh, and his sister, Emily. I want to tell him about tall, crazy Gert. I want to tell him about bridges and funerals, and most of all, maps. More than anything else, I want to tell him about myself. I want to tell him that I know what things look like from above now. There's so much I want to tell him, because I know he'll understand.”

“The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth.those I don't have but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on.”

“Fearless love looks like this: I don't care what you think of me, there is a God in heaven who loves you so much that you won't care who I am; by the time you meet Him.”

“I think that the thing I most want you to remember is that research is a ceremony. And so is life. Everything that we do shares in the ongoing creation of our universe.”

“I hope they have found enough pleasure along the way so that they don't want it ended”

“There are certain authors out there whose books I'll read no matter what they're about. More often than not I don't even need to read the blurb to know that I'll love it. It's that kind of confidence in my work that I hope to earn from my readers someday.”