That's what is so precious in reading this way - you can plumb the depths of another's experience while sitting still with a book in your hands.

Can we really be friends with those who don't love the books that we do? Of course we can, but can we really be friends with those who don't love any books? I'm not so sure of that.

I learned that books could be collected, that they were important enough to keep and that a story that seemed to be over could be part of a bigger one.

That's what reading was for my mother, and became for me - a way to escape, a private time machine, a place that began with moral instruction but soon morphed into empathy and imagination.

I realised that reading was the key that opened the door to secret lands, strange places and the worlds behind other people's eyes.

You will be fine, ' the fortune teller says. 'There may be decisions to make and surprises in store. Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.

If you are not interested in yourself, then nobody is. But there is no reason to be self-obsessed.

You will stay with me. You will sleep here at my side and you will touch me. I am depressed but not when you stroke my chest.

The Holy Scripture is like a diamond: in the dark it is like a piece of glass, but as soon as the light strikes it the water begins to sparkle, and the scintillation of life greets us.

The press follow me. I sue them. That's the deal.

A bodhisattva is someone who has compassion within himself or herself and who is able to make another person smile or help someone suffer less. Every one of us is capable of this.

It looks wrong, and it sounds wrong, but it's right.

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!

The Ideal is the invisible Sun which is always on the meridian of the soul.