He knew he couldn't tell stories, that he always included extraneous details & tangents that interested only him.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater.

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

A taste so profound and complex that it can't even be compared to other tastes, only to emotions. Cheesy waffles, I was thinking, tastes like love without the fear of love's dissolution.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

She posed as being more indolent than she felt, for fear of finding herself less able than she could wish.

‎"If there is no discipline, there is anarchy. Good citizenship demands attention to responsibilities as well as rights.

When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

God has arranged everything in the universe in consideration of everything else.

Books belong to their readers.

I don't have a lot of stomach for people who don't show up to a set knowing their lines because you're keeping 150 people waiting.

Most leaders don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.

I don't blame my own parents for the way I grew up, as quite often there is little choice in these issues.

A person who can get a good table at Chez Panisse at the last minute is a very important person indeed. Royalty begins with Alice Waters.

The test of a people is what they can do when they're tired.