Will Schwalbe

“Good books often answer questions you didn't even know you wanted to ask”

— Will Schwalbe

“You can die now, with three healthy children, your husband of almost fifty years alive and well, and five grandchildren whom you…

— Will Schwalbe

“You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them. I don’t think I’ll ever get…

— Will Schwalbe

“The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you…

— Will Schwalbe

“I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I was when I started, brains are tangles of pathways, and…

— Will Schwalbe

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally,” writes Kabat-Zinn. “This kind of attention…

— Will Schwalbe

“Connelly writes, “As long as there is paper, people will write, secretly, in small rooms, in the hidden chambers of their minds,…

— Will Schwalbe

“...mindfulness - it isn't a trick or a gimmick. It's being present in the moment. When I'm with you, I'm with you.…

— Will Schwalbe

“I can’t see giving up real books,” she said. “And I love that I can give away my books after I’ve read…

— Will Schwalbe

If our family was an airline, Mom was the hub and we were the spokes. You rarely went anywhere nonstop; you went…

— Will Schwalbe

“This, I finally realized, was how Mom was able to focus when I was not. It was how she was able to…

— Will Schwalbe

“That day at chemo, we talked once more about the ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. “I just really want to know which…

— Will Schwalbe

“We were terrified to stop, stop anything, and admit that something was wrong. Activity, frenzied activity, seemed to be the thing we…

— Will Schwalbe

“MOM LIKED THE Ritalin. And she found it had a terrific and unexpected side effect—it helped her read. The day she first…

— Will Schwalbe

“It's not that I liked lunacy for the sake of lunacy, but if a writer can truly surprise me without throwing logic…

— Will Schwalbe

“There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house - be it taking out the trash…

— Will Schwalbe

“No one in the family has ever really gotten over Bob’s death. We talk of him daily, recounting stories and imagining what…

— Will Schwalbe

“Reading is a respite from the restlessness of technology, but it's not only that. It's how I reset and recharge. It's how…

— Will Schwalbe

It's not hard to read about death abstractly. I do find it tough when a character I love dies, of course. You…

— Will Schwalbe

“As for me, I'm on a search and have been, I now realize, all my life - to find books to help…

— Will Schwalbe

“We had chosen as our next book club selection Jhumpa Lahiri’s new collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, as we’d both loved…

— Will Schwalbe

“He was the smartest and best-read person any of us had every known, but he wore his learning so lightly and had…

— Will Schwalbe

“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…

— Will Schwalbe

“I often forget that other people's stories aren't simply introductions to my own more engaging, more dramatic, more relevant, and better-told tales,…

— Will Schwalbe

“I gave people who didn’t know what to say the best advice I could muster, which was that it was better to…

— Will Schwalbe

“Hidden away, the people of the streets drift into sleep induced by alcohol or agitated by despair, into dreams that carry them…

— Will Schwalbe

“reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose -- electronic or printed or audio -- is the grandest entertainment, and…

— Will Schwalbe

“1. Ask: “Do you want to talk about how you’re feeling?” 2. Don’t ask if there’s anything you can do. Suggest things,…

— Will Schwalbe

“That's one of the amazing things great books like this do - they don't just get you to see the world differently,…

— Will Schwalbe

“all over the world, the people always asked for the same thing: books. Sometimes even before medicine or shelter—they wanted books for…

— Will Schwalbe

“How does a doctor tell you that it’s over, that there are things they could do but probably shouldn’t, and that if…

— Will Schwalbe

“She felt whatever emotions she felt, but feeling was never a useful substitute for doing, and she never let the former get…

— Will Schwalbe

“Why didn’t this one say this, or tell someone that, or let anyone know she or he was so unhappy, so lonely,…

— Will Schwalbe

I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and…

— Will Schwalbe

“I'm talking about those novels where the characters aren't really interesting and you don't care about them or anything they care about.…

— Will Schwalbe

“Throughout her life, whenever Mom was sad or confuse or disoriented, she could never concentrate on television, she said, but always sought…

— Will Schwalbe

“Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility--that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between…

— Will Schwalbe

“sThat’s enriched my life more than I can say. Of course you could do more—you can always do more, and you should…

— Will Schwalbe

“books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose -…

— Will Schwalbe

“We're all in the end-of-your-life book-club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each…

— Will Schwalbe