Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.

A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water.

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.

Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.

Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves.

Your fate is never determined when your massive imagination is.

We fall back into the past, we jump ahead into the future, and in this we lose our entire lives.

Be strong to hope, O Heart! Though day is bright, The stars can only shine In the dark night. Be strong, O Heart of mine, Look towards the light!

I'm alright with who I am and I don't feel that I need to be better.

It's quite hard to faze me. I'm fairly un-shockable.

I think that I shall never scan A tree as lovely as a man. . . . . A tree depicts divinest plan, But God himself lives in a man.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

Whenever people go out of their way to help other people - there's power and beauty in our diversity.

If a monk can overcome two things, he can become free from the world. Bodily ease and vain-glory.

Make the upcoming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.