Here we are, alive, and you and I will have to make it what we can.

To know a man's library is, in some measure, to know a man's mind.

A book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand.

There are always a few who stand up in times of communal madness and have the courage to say that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.

I'm a praying atheist. When I hear an ambulance siren, I ask for a blessing for those people in trouble, knowing that no one's listening. I think it's just a habit of mindfulness.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

Who is the brave man--he who feels no fear? If so, then bravery is but a polite term for a mind devoid of rationality and imagination.

You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.

Sometimes we all forget that the world itself is paradise, and there has been much of late to enourage that amnesia. (Microserfs, p 366)

Love is in your heart. If you search deeply you will find it.

With your goal you make the one.

When the question is either/or, the answer is almost alwaysboth/and.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ileum?

The infinite possibilities. That's what used to do my nut in.

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.

In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way, and ushers me on.

The thing about Iran is there are many political factions and it's not quite the dictatorial, authoritarian state with one person always making every single decision.

You need a story to displace a story.