The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

The good parent: someone who doesn't mind, for a time, being hated by their children.

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury.

Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.