“Forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital. … Do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that's an investment in who you might want to be next.”

“I was looking for a miracle, but I got a story instead, and sometimes those are the same thing.”

“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.”

“From the moment we are born, we begin to die.”

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”

“It's like this old patchwork quilt my momma used to have...Each piece on that quilt meant something. And some of those pieces were the damn ugliest things you've ever seen...But some of the pieces were so beautiful they almost hurt my eyes to look at when I was a kid...That's the best you can hope for, Danny. That your life turns out like that patchwork quilt. That you can add some bright, sparkling pieces to the dirty, stained ones you have so far. That in the end, the bright patches might take up more space on your quilt than the dark ones.”

“What happens when perfection isn't good enough?”