So many days in their shared life. So many experiences. How had they managed to spend the previous sixteen years unlearning each other? How had all the presence summed to disappearance?

Between any two beings there is a unique, uncrossable distance, an unenterable sanctuary. Sometimes it takes the shape of aloneness. Sometimes it takes the shape of love.

In the struggle between yourself and the world, side with the world

So it had something to do with the sinner, and something with the judge, and the fear of not being forgiven, and the relief of being loved again.

Nothing goes away. Not on its own. You deal with it, or it deals with you.

No father knows that he is carrying his son up the stairs for the final time

One can build a perfect home, but not live in it.

He chose illness, because he knew of no other way to be seen. Not even by those looking at him.

she also liked to remember that there could be no such thing as an intentional imperfection. People are always mistaking something that looks good for something that feels good.

You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of

My only policy is to profess evil and do good.

Make sure you never, never argue at night. You just lose a good night's sleep, and you can't settle anything until morning anyway.

'Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto' is a surprise and a fresh way of looking at Harlem, connecting the black district with the architecture of its historical past.

Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.

[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.

The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards.

There's a basic feeling of lack that we want to distract ourselves from. We want to fix it by looking outside ourselves, as if it is going to fill us up.

Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.

In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend.

No being can make another one happy.