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

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

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

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true. When will you realize... Vienna waits for you.

Trees indeed have hearts.

A writing teacher once told me that the most successful movies and books were simple plots about complex characters. You should be able to articulate your concept in a couple of lines.

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

I believe in traditional marriage.

The mass are animal, in pupilage, and near chimpanzee.

This isn’t a game. We don’t want mediocre employees who can keep the status quo. We want souls. We want to win. And you’ve spent most of your time here being mediocre.

Mental illness is a myth, whose function is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations.

If we see an object as a bowl, it may inhibit seeing it as craft, just as seeing it as craft might inhibit seeing it as art. See first; name later.

There are no traffic jams when you go the extra mile.