What’s the likelihood? That the one girl who makes my heart race is the one girl who wants me in return? That the accident of my attraction coincides with the accident of hers?

I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.

To experience sublime natural beauty is to confront the total inadequacy of language to describe what you see. Words cannot convey the scale of a view that is so stunning it is felt.

Remember that anybody who is clever enough to set you free is clever enough to enslave you.

For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.

Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company.

Never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person's point of view.