I said I had a three-year-old with broken fingers, and you said, ‘Maybe he owed somebody money.’” “Yes, - Heidi Pitlor

The daylight, he remembered, was a sort of medicine. Truly nothing was as acute or upsetting in the first light of day.

after a luncheon party with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, Greta Garbo, and two producers — “I think it was a psychological test to see how I would act” — Knopf offered O’Brien work as MGM’s “European Scenario Editor.

We — editors, writers, teachers, publishers — need to do whatever we can to enliven readers, to help create communities for them if we want to continue to have readers at all. Our independent bookstores are the front lines, and many booksellers are fighting the good fight. Here, books stimulate conversation. Conversation stimulates a sense of community. Listening happens. Thinking. The exchange of thoughts.