If mortals wait until the gods remake the world to their liking to be happy, they are already in hell.

you must not use wood to put out the fire.

prophecies do not alter fate, only confirm it.

The young see what they wish to see. The old see what they do not wish.

to ask for anything of consequence from friends who cannot refuse is uncivilized.

Principles have a way of yielding to power.

Like most Chinese, I am basically a fatalist - too sophisticated for religion and too superstitious to deny the gods.

A secret, like a chore, always seems to lead to another, one even more troublesome than the first.

What harm is there in dreaming, if it eases pain? What good is reality, if it blots out hope? Can a man's mind be washed without bleaching his soul?

Telling Sam and Daneca feels like peeling off my own skin to expose everything underneath. It hurts.

Some of the greatest journeys of humankind are those that, at the time being, only the one living it understands.

Muslims have different meanings for the same words that we use. They are so convinced of the "truth" of Islam that they do not perceive Jihad/terrorism, or dhimmitude as violence.

For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France." "But there isn't anything between Germany and France. Except Switzerland." "Precisely," said Jace.

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

Ive always loved the blues, John Lee Hooker, Janis Joplin, Hendrix.

You sit or stand in the subway, and you look around - I do, because I don't have a phone so I'm not playing a game - and you see people.

If you ask me, what is helpful to creativity is training the eye to notice things, to observe closely and precisely, being careful not to make a muddle of it.

There are amazing people in this world that just need an opportunity.

Yeah, I have a tough-girl image.