Quotes from Will Schwalbe

Books focused her mind, calmed her, took her outside of herself;

remarked to Mom how all the books we were reading then shared not just length but a certain theme: fate and the effects of the choices people make. "I think most good books share that theme," Mom said.

But missing people and being lonely, she pointed out, are two separate things.

Well, what were your favorite books?" "When?" "As a young girl." "Nancy Drew. I read dozens of them. I loved the idea of a girl detective.

I spend my life collecting books and sentences from them: I've sought alongside ones I've stumbled across, and sentences I've forced into my brain through rote memorization alongside ones that just found their way by themselves. At home, I'm a librarian, forever curating my collection. Outside of my apartment, I'm a bookseller—hand-selling my favorite books to everyone I encounter. There's a name for someone who behaves the way I do: Reader.

What do we owe the dead, our dead? Maybe it's first that we need to remember them.

remains for my family the perfect model of how you can be gone but ever present in the lives of people who loved you, in the same way that your favorite books stay with you for your entire life, no matter how long it's been since you turned the last page.

The Caine Mutiny,

She thought you should be able to keep your private life private for any reason or for no reason. She even felt that way about politicians—so long as they weren't hypocrites—and worried that we'd never find enough good and interesting people to run for office if we pried into every corner of their past.

Really, whenever you read something wonderful, it changes your life, even if you aren't aware of it.

The Bite of the Mango,

Here is Chang Ch'ao on reading at different times in your life: "Reading books in one's youth is like looking at the moon through a crevice; reading books in middle age is like looking at the moon in one's courtyard; and reading books in old age is like looking at the moon on an open terrace. This is because the depth of benefits of reading varies in proportion to the depth of one's own experience.

Universal health care was always an issue Mom cared about, and the more care she got, the angrier she became that good medicine wasn't available for everyone in the United States. The pharmacy almost always provoked a political discussion or diatribe.

That's the point, Will. You can't control the beatings. But maybe you can have some control over your happiness.

That's the point, Will. You can't control the beatings. But maybe you can have some control over your happiness. As long as he can, well then, he still has something worth living for. And when he's no longer able, he knows he's done all he can.

Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility—that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary.

There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house—be it taking out the trash or cleaning your room—and that was to have your face buried in a book.

It's three hours, and I know I probably won't feel up for it, but if I'm going to feel rotten, I'd rather feel rotten watching something wonderful than just sitting in the living room, looking at the wall.

We found ourselves discussing the three kinds of fateful choices that exist in the two books: the ones characters make knowing that they can never be undone; the ones they make thinking they can but learn they can't; and the ones they make thinking they can't and only later come to understand, when it's too late, when "nothing can be undone," that they could have.

Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Usually, Mom popped right up after that [chemo] and gathered her things, and we were on our way. Today she remained in the chair. "Are you okay, Mom?" I asked. She looked very tired. "I am feeling a little sad. I know there's a life everlasting - but I wanted to do so much more here.

I realized then that for all of us, part of the process of Mom's dying was mourning not just her death but also the death of our dreams of things to come. You don't really lose the person who has been; you have all those memories.

Kabat-Zinn writes, "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." OBAMA

Samuel Smiles's 1859 bestseller Self-Help (with illustrations of Character and Conduct).