... She knew in her heart that to be without optimism, that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain, was a fatal flaw, the seed of death.

Americans sometimes say to me that they have no class system themselves. All human beings have class systems. It can be based on a different thing in a different country, but the thing about breeding is, you can't buy it. You can't buy class.

The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything.

I believe in an individual soul which travels through eternity. This life is far from all there is--in fact, it is a minute part, simply an antechamber, a deciding place where we choose the light from the dark, where we come to know what we truly value.

I did a complete rewrite of 650 pages in two weeks.

Maybe right and wrong did not move, but understanding of them did. The wrenching pain of walking the same path, even for a short space, tore away the willingness to judge.

I wonder how often in the past I may have missed the good in people because I pre-judged, based on the differences?