Quotes from Will Schwalbe

Mom agreed but pointed out that she'd been doing the same with others too—talking about books with my sister and brother and some of her friends. "I guess we're all in it together," she said. And I couldn't help but smile at the other meaning of the phrase. We're all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one.

We all owe everyone for everything that happens in our lives. But it's not owing like a debt to one person- it's really that we owe everyone for everything. Our whole lives can change in an instance- so each person who keeps that from happening, no matter how small a role they play, is also responsible for all of it. Just by giving friendship and love, you keep the people around you from giving up- and each expression of friendship or love may be the one that makes all the difference.

I gave people who didn't know what to say the best advice I could muster, which was that it was better to say anything rather than pretend that nothing was wrong. My hunch was that Mom would simply appreciate knowing that people were thinking of her.

a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your blessings. And gratitude isn't what you give in exchange for something; it's what you feel when you are blessed—blessed to have family and friends who care about you, and who want to see you happy. Hence the joy from thanking.

and sister and father and mother had. I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.

You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.

I asked: "And I was very surprised by the ending. Were you?" "Of course not—I'd read it first.

asked: "And I was very surprised by the ending. Were you?" "Of course not—I'd read it first. I don't think I could have stood the suspense if I hadn't known what was going to happen. I'd have been way too worried.

You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them.

You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them. I don't think I'll ever get over Melanie's death in Gone With the Wind. But I'm still so glad I got to know her.

But people can be cruel in lots of ways, some very subtle.

That's one of the amazing things great books like this do—they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.

everyone doesn't have to do everything." she told me ."people forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. i've had so much pleasure from beautiful things created by other people, things i could never make or do.

We've reached a point in American history when death has become almost the last obscenity. Have you noticed how many of us refuse to say 'he or she died'? We're far more likely to say 'she passed away,' as though death were a sterile process of modest preparation, followed by shrink-wrapping, then rapid transit—where? Well, elsewhere. In short, it's the single thing we're loath to discuss in public.

It was the women of afghanistan,my mother believed,who-once they'd been granted access to books and education- would be the salvation of the country

Loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern world, so full of freedom, independence and our own egotistical selves." The young man can't think of anything to say in response. The truth of the statement is too stark for him.

What I suddenly understood was that a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your

Everyone doesn't have to do everything... People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. I've had so much pleasure from beautiful and challenging things created by other people, things I could never made or do. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

A father and his son are in a terrible car crash. The father is killed instantly—but the son survives, barely, his life hanging in the balance. He's rushed to the hospital and into surgery, but there's only one doctor there, and as soon as the doctor sees the boy, the doctor says, 'I can't operate on my own son!' How could this be, if the boy's father was killed in the crash?

A phrase the doctor used had reassured Mom—"treatable but not curable.

2. People who promise things that they never give are like clouds and wind that bring no rain: do not be misled by promises. 3. Your vote is your power: use it to make a difference to your life and your country.

Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time, one could go to New Zealand.' The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference, there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal

Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas, a young writer originally from Boston who was now living and teaching in New York. Man Gone Down is another big, ambitious novel—about race, the American Dream, fatherhood, money, and love.

Joseph recognized the face of God in human form. It glimmered in their kindness to him, it glowed in their keenness, it hinted in their caring, indeed it caressed in their gaze.'