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.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.