She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist.

because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.

I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print, the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig-tree.

I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.

My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.

I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.

I may have made a straight A in physics, but I was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I learned it.

No great leader can be made by image-builders.

How do you live with yourself, Lord Arrogant?” “Very easily, Lady Difficult. I find myself quitecharming.

Continue to share your heart with people even if it's been broken.

There were rules in the monastery, but the Master always warned against the tyranny of the law. 'Obedience keeps the rules,' he would say. 'Love knows when to break them.'

When all else fails...be a rockstar

Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else.

For whom he means to make an often guest, One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.

red plastic rain her tears stain

I have not know a worthy son to whom his mother appeared ugly.

To me, each individual is far more valuable than society as a whole.