Quotes from Gabrielle Zevin

We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.

Why are you crying?" "I was reading.

When small wounds are left untreated, they can fest and become far more serious injuries." -Mr. Kipling

thinks she should have met someone by now. And yet . . . Amelia the bright-sider believes it is better to be alone than to be with someone who doesn't share your sensibilities and interests. (It is, right?) Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men. This observation insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads

Mes nesame kaip romanai. Ir ne kaip apsakymai. Gal? gale esame literat?ros k?rini? rinktin?.

My life is in these books. Read these and know my heart.

Ja minusta on hauska keskustella kirjoista sellaisten ihmisten kanssa, joista on hauska keskustella kirjoista. Minä pidän paperista. Minä pidän sen tunnusta ja siitä miltä kirja tuntuu takataskussa. Pidän myös kirjan tuoksusta.

In the end we are collected works.

she'd asked him about the book that had had the greatest influence on his life, and he'd replied Principles of Accounting, Part II.

The store is seven Mayas wide and twelve Mayas long. She knows this because she once spent an afternoon measuring it by lying her body across the room. It is fortunate that it is not more than twenty Mayas long because that is as far as she could count on the day the measurements were taken.

Despite everything that transpired at Unfair Games on December 4th, 2005, and despite evidence to the contrary, it is not an inevitability that we should be our worst selves behind the mask of an avatar.

Yes, Dad. Dad is what I am. Dad is what I became. The father of Maya. Maya's dad. Dad. What a word. What a little big word. What a word and what a world! He is crying. His heart is too full, and no words to release it. I know what words do, he thinks. They let us feel less.

He had spent hours with the man over the last half-dozen years. They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?

please disinfect before handling the infanta.

The easiest way to get old is to be technologically behind, A.J.

Lambiase and the first Ms. Fikry speak variations on the phrase, "A town isn't a town without a bookstore." Surely, they both must have read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

he had referred to blurbs as "the blood diamonds of publishing.

Her diaper is soiled. A.J. has never changed a diaper in his life, though he is a modestly skilled gift wrapper. Back when Nic was alive, Island used to offer free gift wrap at Christmas, and he figures that diaper changing and gift-wrapping must be related proficiencies.

Next time, we fail better.

And sometimes, you get an extra life. But you might kill yourself trying to get the extra life, so it's not always worth it.

Reading's overrated. Look at all the good stuff on television. Stuff like True Blood.

I had never been good with words. On the path from my heart to my brain to my mouth, phrases became twisted and hopelessly convoluted. The intent—what I meant to say—never quite made it out.

You love your daughter, but you have fewer choices than you once did. Your choices are dictated by her. Maybe not fewer choices. Maybe it's that the answers are more obvious, so you don't pose the questions. Life unspools more inevitably.

What I mean to say is that you can make a choice, be reasonably satisfied with it, and still regret that which you did not choose. Maybe it's like ordering dessert. You have it narrowed down to either a warm peanut butter torte or strawberries jubilee. You choose the torte, and it's delicious. But you still wonder about those strawberries...