He realized this early on, and realized too that what people think are their lives are merely its conditions. The truth is closer than thought and lies buried in what we already know.

The most frustrating part of trying to direct everything is not that it alienates you from people who genuinely want to help, but that it’s actually impossible.

[I] read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.

I think anyone can fall in love, if you’re open and you’re willing, but the real test is sustaining it after all the excitement has worn off.

Actually, years mean nothing. It’s what’s inside them.

Writers are often alone when they work. Hours pass in silence as one long moment; light fades as day turns back to face the coming night.

Love is also a violence, and cannot be undone.

Happy Birthday!” The smell of cake and the sound of feet under the table. I awake in a body that’s too big. I also dream in motion and sensation. My father’s boat and the snore...

I tried to convey to the boy how people’s lives are often altered by curved lines read slowly from paper, sand, or stone.

Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.

The present grows within the boundaries of the past.

If you travel too often, you actually come face-to-face with what you’re trying to escape. I feel like when I travel alone, sometimes it’s like being locked in a hotel room with my own worst...

Anyone who is desperate or alone will agree there is comfort in routine.

Sometimes I wake up and lie still enough to hear a petal drop from the vase of flowers. Sometimes I lie awake and wish there was someone to hear my falling.

Royal Young’s writing is that rare blend of irony and beauty.

This is why fashion is such a magical part of our lives, for it inspires our decisions without dictating them; it sets the theme but not the limits of our aesthetic.

Sometimes, language is the sound of longing

Shoes are a neutral blessing for us because feet generally aren’t regarded as a place where the battle for self-esteem is won or lost. Feet don’t change size when the body does through the natural...

When he smiles, they mostly look away. But Martin likes to think they carry his smile for a few blocks – that even the smallest gesture is something grand.

I was afraid of the sea when I was a girl. Someone said it went on forever and that frightened me. I wondered why my parents had chosen to live at the beginning and the...

Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us.

The joy of style lies not in how we look to other people, but in how we look to ourselves – and the most memorable and beautiful outfits are simply those that, in some rare...

The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.

Both my parents were very supportive of me in whatever I wanted to do.

But those who seek only reassurance from life will never be more than tourists—seeing everything and trying to possess what can only be felt.Beauty is the shadow of imperfection.

We all have different lives, Martin believes – but in the end probably feel the same things, and regret the fear we thought might somehow sustain us.

Should you ever feel too lonely…listen for the roar of the sea- for in it are all those who’ve been and all those who are to come.

Life had called his name, and without thinking, he had stepped forward. He wondered if perhaps he was becoming the person he had always wanted to be.

Every parent, no matter how cultured or sophisticated, will one day succumb to a child’s pleas to visit Walt Disney World Resort.

Coincidences mean you’re on the right path.

I was always a writer, by which I mean I was always scribbling away, doing something with pen and paper.

Children are the closest we have to wisdom, and they become adults the moment that final drop of everything mysterious is strained from them.

I think people would be happier if they admitted things more often. In a sense we are all prisoners of some memory, or fear, or disappointment – we are all defined by something we can’t...

He might be famous (local newspaper or television) for finding it, true—but if fame takes away the thing it celebrates, then Sebastien would prefer the inspired silence. We’re all famous in our own hearts anyway.

You were unsure which pain is worse — the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will.

Libraries are the ultimate restaurants for brain food. I sleep better knowing there are libraries. I would take a bullet for a librarian.

Succes is really nothing more than the record of failure. To be successful means you must be willing to fail more than anyone else.

There are times in life when language fails us, when everything that needs to be said can be expressed only by saying nothing at all.

Death is the most sophisticated form of beauty, and the most difficult to accept.

The beauty of artifacts is in how they reassure us we’renot the first to die.

I wanted to explain that trusting is harder than being trusted.

Grief is a room without doors – but somehow, with its tinsel and cliches, Christmas finds a way in.

Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in theuniverse, except that everyone else is still here.

When I’m doing something, I do work hard at it.

I think music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.

He wanted to tell the baby that Paris was like a poem in stone.

Then, breathing slow, and almost deliberately, stops. But for a moment the old man doesn’t realize he is dead. He can feel Martin’s heart and mistakes it for his own.

I find hunger more interesting than accomplishment.

She said that one day they would be very old, that the world would be a different place, but it would always be their world, and that the time apart now would be a nightmare...

When you give something up, you need to fill the space where it used to be, and you understand the landscape in yourself a bit more.