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If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat.

The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they might be related to one another in ways frowned on by the Old Testament.

those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account.

It's frightening to be free, to have to take responsibility for your decisions.

What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat

She resented the fact that her veil, which to her was a symbol of scared relationship to god, had now become an instrument of power, turning the women who wore them into political signs and symbols.

It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere...

The novels were an escape from reality in the sense that we could marvel at their beauty and perfection. Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities,...

Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies.

I eat my heart out alone.

With fear come the lies and the justifications that, no matter how convincing, lower our self-esteem.

A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and...

The Bishop blessed him and helped him to his feet."May God have mercy on you," he said. And erased him from his heart.

The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in ones own home." Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced...

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

We men are the miserable slaves of prejudice

We're so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks-we're involved in trillions of little acts...

In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way...

Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.

Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into...

Science has eliminated distance.

Empathy lies at the heart of , like so many other great novels--the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

Falling in love with a book brings the same catapulting madness and zest that falling in love with a person brings.

A novel is not an allegory, I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and...

The revolution taught me not to be consoled by other people's miseries, not to feel thankful because so many others had suffered more. Pain and loss, like love and joy, are unique and personal; they...

I'm a perfectly equipped failure.

I told them this novel was an American classic, in many ways the quintessential American novel. There were other contenders: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter. Some...

Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved...

I had always thought that dying of love was nothing more than poetic license. That afternoon, returning home, again, without the cat and without her, I realized that not only was it possible, but that...

They were two happy lovers among the crowd, and they came to suspect that love could be a feeling that was more relaxing and deep than the happiness, wild but momentary, of their secret nights.

No matter what doctors say, anger in human beings is often one of the enemy's traps.

I returned home tormented by the little demon who whispers into our ear the devastating replies we didn't give at the right time

He finished shaving by touch, still walking around the room, for he tried to see himself in the mirror as little as possible so he would not have to look into his own eyes.