Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.

Hey, that’s what life’s all about: little by little, day by day, with excruciating stubbornness, each of us learning how to be less screwed up.

Being alone can be good. It's easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death.

You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.

You won't find the truth of life in morbidity, only in hope.

What will happen will happen. There is time for miracles until there is no more time, but time has no end.

Life was too short to dwell on nightmares instead of dreams. (pg. 541)

Initially the snow had been beautiful, but not so much now. The softness and sparkle still charmed, but the storm occluded the sky, denying us the stars. At the moment, I needed to see a firmament of stars, needed to gaze past the moon and through the constellations, needed to see what can't be seen--infinity.

In a universe in which past, present, and future came into existence all at once, complete from beginning to end, with all possible outcomes of every life woven through the tapestry, there is no chance, only choice, no luck, but only consequences.