But Saudi Arabia is surprising in a lot of ways. Like any place, or any people, it relentlessly defies easy categorization.

We are unusual and tragic and alive.

I met a lot of great people in Saudi Arabia and I'd like to see them again. And I'd love to spend more time in the desert and in the mountains. I felt really at home there.

Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.

We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.

Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.

Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?

Here I am Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Again the greatest use of a human was to be useful. Not to consume, not to watch, but to do something for someone else that improved their life, even for a few minutes.

But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.

Pain comes at me and I take it, chew it for a few minutes, and spit it back out. It's just not my thing anymore.

When I looked upon the surface of the gently flowing water, each painting that I had burned upon joining the church rose from the waves. I tried to grab them, but they dissolved upon touch.

One thinks one's something unique and wonderful at the center of the universe, when in fact one's just a slight interruption in the ongoing march of entropy.

The hardest part has been maintaining a small head and remaining down to earth. So many people try to make you more than you are.

It's enjoyable to just drink in an image. It's effortless. That struck me as an interesting way of looking at it: I do all the grunt work so you can enjoy.

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

It has been common knowledge to informed collectors that many times the finest and rarest art glass is found unsigned.

One should connect language learning with either work or leisure. And not at the expense of them but to supplement them.

I was on the cheerleading squad and drama and the choir, but I was friends with everybody. I was not a partier. I was too Type A and crazy about my grades, but I was still there at everything.

I am here to fix the problem with yer pheaun.

The truly wise man is he who always believes the Bible against the opinions of any man.