Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater.

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

A taste so profound and complex that it can't even be compared to other tastes, only to emotions. Cheesy waffles, I was thinking, tastes like love without the fear of love's dissolution.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality.

A book acts as the getaway car when you need to escape.Even when you're the one writing it.

Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?

The only time I flip out is when I'm not prepared. If I'm caught off guard, I can't help it; I start gasping for air.

Cowardice, the dread of what will happen.

When I ask President Marcos for two million dollars, at worst he wants to know whether he should bring the money straight away or whether I can wait for a cheque in the post.

Beaujolais is so underrated.

You know, you're only as happy as your least happy child. So if your kids aren't okay, you're not good.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

I was an academic and I lost my assignment at Harvard. Meanwhile, [David Petraeus] gets invited to Harvard to become a fellow.