The first thing I think about when I wake up most mornings is the fact that I'm tired. I have been tired for decades. I am tired in the morning and I am tired while becalmed in the slough of the afternoon, and I am tired in the evening, except right when I try to go to sleep.

Once words and thoughts are poured into them, books are no longer just paper and ink and glue: They take on a kind of human vitality.

In times of trouble, libraries are sanctuaries.

I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of ‘student-athletes.’ I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don’t believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that’s another story.

Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn’t, but they do, and a lot.

I had never considered using a hashtag anywhere other than on Twitter, but now I’m inspired. Text messages have always seemed a little flat to me, so the murmuring Greek chorus of a hashtag might be a perfect way to liven them up and give them a bit of dimension.

Even after I’d published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

According to a 2010 study, almost three hundred million Americans used one of the country’s 17,078 public libraries and bookmobiles in the course of the year.

The Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books during their twelve years in power.

The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.