“What do stars do? They shine.”

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.

Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it’s much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!

Adventures are all very well in their place, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.

I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn’t mean anything? What then?

I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

Not only are there no happy endings,’ she told him, ‘there aren’t even any endings.

I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.

Rule number one: Don’t fuck with librarians.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

An Angel who did not so much fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards.

This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.

Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, Leave no path untaken.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven?

We heap up around us things that we do not need as the crow makes piles of glittering pebbles.

We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.

Let us make hay while the sun shines.

I think America is still a bright, shining city on the hill – not because we’re perfect but because we struggle in our imperfections every day.

A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.

You understand what I’m telling you, Tommy? You have a light inside you, and the only person who gets to decide whether that light shines or not is you.

Things do not have to be shiny and loud, to be important.

Things do not have to be shiny and loud, to be important.