“There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’”

She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…

I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician.

They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.

Being the first born gives you great patience.

Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.

No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you.

I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn’t change them. That hurt.

We must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.

If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more.

The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. Its like a cancer thats metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?

The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

It was all I had, all I’ve ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information.

I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around but he carried it off so well.

No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.

It sounds so lovely in French. So I took that because it was the subject: I and myself and myself and I. Which is, in a way, boring, because it is a contradiction.

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one.

Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head.

Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Don’t Let Him Know is a rich, evocative and brilliantly told tale of family, of loyalties, and of love that must stay secret.

Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.

Well, we’ve been lucky devils both And there is no need for a pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.

As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.