“For the most part, you don't hold the people you love in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you from a burning house. Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you, in a million quiet and perfect ways, from being alone.”

“It is the ability to make predictions about the future that is the crux of intelligence.”

“People are more likely to fall intensely in love when they are anxious and their self-esteem is lowest.... Feeling inadequate, unhappy, and empty are virtual prerequisites for falling and staying desperately in love; at least temporarily, the ecstasy of desire seems to cure everything that ails you. There is a connection between aversive states of mind -- loneliness, shame, even grief and horror -- and a propensity to feel overwhelming passion; this is one reason why romances blossom in times of war or natural disasters, as well as during the private disasters of our everyday lives.”

“I can give you a better 'and then'," Ranger said.”

“You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.”

“Oh, I'm good. Seriously, after all these years, you'd think I would stop amazing myself. But here I am, still doing it.”

“When a woman says no, she doesn’t mean yes. She doesn’t mean maybe. She doesn’t mean please try to talk me out of it because I really don’t mean it, but I just want you to work a little harder. She means no. N. O. Now get out of my way.”

“Real lives have no end. Real books have no end.”