I believe the transsexual urge, at least as I have experienced it, to be far more than a social compulsion, but biological, imaginative, and essentially spiritual, too.

Kashmir has always been more than a mere place. It has the quality of an experience, or a state of mind, or perhaps an ideal.

Wherever you go in life, you will feel somewhere over your shoulder a pink, castellated shimmering presence, the domes and riggings and crooked pinacles of the Serenissima

To the stern student of affairs, Beirut is a phenomenon, beguiling perhaps, but quite, quite impossible.

To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial. It is soul, perhaps, it is talent, it is taste, it is environment, it is how one feels, it is light and shade, it is inner music.

Book lovers will understand me, and they will know too that part of the pleasure of a library lies in its very existence.

Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, has become very largely a commodity, and from all sides we are persuaded into thinking that it is a social requirement, too.

the personality of St. John's, Newfoundland, hits you like a smack in the face with a dried cod, enthusiastically administered by its citizenry.

The genius of Canada remains essentially a deflationary genius.

Leningrad ... is a city with the gift of timelessness.

[Travel seems] not just a way of having a good time, but something that every self-respecting citizen ought to undertake, like a high-fiber diet, say, or a deodorant.

The only thing worse than regretting the things you've done is regretting the things you didn't do.

It was much easier to explain the veil than to answer questions about the wounds.

My dad instilled in me a great sense of humor. I wasn't bullied at school because my outward attitude was confident, and that helps.

My father was often angry when I was most like him.

I'm a big guy so I have to keep my muscles loose. So I do a lot of stretching before the game. I'll do about 10-15 minutes of yoga just to loosen up my body, get warm and get ready to play.

Positive response from some of our exporters and holders of free funds in response to some of the turnaround initiatives ... in particular the favourable exchange rate policies.

A human life is a story told by God.

[Donald Trump ] who has said women don't deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men.

Sometimes I think I'd rather be frightened than bored. At least when you're frightened you know you're alive.

I bless / all knowledge of love, all ways of publishing it.