Scratch a female inmate, I've discovered, and you'll usually find a girl whose mother had terrible taste in men.

This is what we do, my mother's life said. We find ourselves in the sacrifices we make.

Oh, for Christ's sake, ' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

The treasure of time is the miracle in the moment.

I'm greedy for that satisfaction of doing something hard and knowing that, even though I was afraid I couldn't do it, that somehow I can deliver.

People are made up of flaws.

Sometimes Allah withholds something from you, not because you don't deserve it, but because you deserve better!

Male urination really is a kind of accomplishment, an arc of transcendance. A woman merely waters the ground she stands on.

I always take photographs when I attend a funeral. Most people there know who I am and expect me to be there with my camera.

If you go out for a drink, you go out for a drink. You don't think, 'I'll have a few pints. I'll piss up this shrine.'

Oh, propriety," says Mrs Benjamin. "We're always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.