Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a social encounter, the ultimate purpose of which is sexual engagement.

The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.

Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

It is not enough just to identify a problem; there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.