Alex had cooked, and coaxed, and helped Mark form borders around the shapeless days. Alex had given meaning to the word "servant".

God answered prayers first by teaching the need to ask, second by using friends as holy messengers.

For the Arab, the past does not merely live. The past defines the present.

His eyes touched lightly, and passed on.

He used a minimum of words and no inflection whatsoever. It was a policeman's manner of speaking, direct and unadorned.

It was typical of the American to identify the one unfinished strand.

Mark felt eyes on him as tight as a sniper's aim.

Normal Iraqi etiquette was forgotten the moment drivers sat behind the wheel.

The distance had been evaporated by humor

Happiness is a perception of what you have, not what you should have.

What first separates a leader from a normal human being? A leader knows who they are as a human being.

What were the politics of my family? They were mainstream moderate politics.

It's easier to change directions while you're still moving.

Variety, individuality, peculiarity, eccentricity and indeed crankiness are agreeable to the British mind; they make life more interesting.

And then, looking back at my first Olympics, and when the pressure was on, in '94 and '98, and looking back and going, wow. I sensed and felt what Brian had gone through.

I fell in love with Rwanda the moment I saw those verdant, rolling hills rise up beneath the wings of the plane as we descended toward Kigali airport.

Words can wound, and wounds can heal.

Flood your imagination with vision... if your deepest needs, values and internal beliefs agree with your direction, then you're more likely to succeed.

I said: "He cannot be so bad if he loves roses so much." "But he is a Beast," said Father helplessly. I saw that he was weakening, and wishing only to comfort him I said, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?"