Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.

It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.