The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.

To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

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

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.

A good half of the art of living is resilience.