“People ask: “Would you or would you not like to be young again?” Of course, it is really one of those foolish questions that never should be asked, because they are impossible. You cannot be — you that are — young again. You cannot unroll that snowball which is you:…

“If you are older and you don’t hurt somewhere when you get up in the morning, you may already be dead. Check your pulse.”

“Being grateful is not a virtue—it’s a survival skill.”

“Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.”

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”

“Other people may complicate our lives but life without them would be unbearably desolate. None of us can be truly human in isolation. The qualities that make us human emerge only in the ways we relate to other people.”