“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 Copy Share Image
“Throughout her life, whenever Mom was sad or confuse or disoriented, she could never concentrate on television, she said, but always sought… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“As for me, I'm on a search and have been, I now realize, all my life - to find books to help… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“He remains for my family the perfect model of how you can be gone but ever present in the lives of people… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“But mostly, when I look back, what I remember is not Mom rushing about; it’s Mom sitting quietly in the center of… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“life depends on what she thinks of as ‘big bursts’ and ‘little bursts.’ Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Lin Yutang also believed that reading is an art. One chapter of the Importance of Living is devoted to "the Art of… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“Mom went on to tell me, as we sat there, that she really believed your personal life was personal. Secrets, she felt,… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“a philosophy called Naikan, developed by Ishin Yoshimoto. Naikan reminds people to be grateful for everything. If you are sitting in a… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
And my first item on each day's list is this: Wake up. If I can check that off, I've already done something and can… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“Hidden away, the people of the streets drift into sleep induced by alcohol or agitated by despair, into dreams that carry them back to… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“If heathen prayers were indeed the best of all, then mine should count big time.” — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
In Gilead, the narrator's friend's son describes himself not as an atheist but in "state of categorical unbelief." He says, "I don't even believe… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“I did manage to read some pages from a book that’s also about how people can find strength they didn’t know they had.” “What… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I was when I started, brains are tangles of pathways, and reading creates… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“Connelly writes, “As long as there is paper, people will write, secretly, in small rooms, in the hidden chambers of their minds, just as… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“When I think back on all the refugee camps I visited, all over the world, the people always asked for the same thing: books.… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“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… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
