Write what's up there." Sister Ignatius pointed at her temple. "As a great man once said, this is a secret garden. We've all got one of those." "Jesus?" "No, Bruce Springsteen.

Maybe love is thinking that every time your partner does or says something mundane that you want to start a Mexican wave from here to Uzbekistan in utter delight.

We said we would meet again but we made no arrangements. Not out of any bad feeling between us, but because I felt it had all been said, or not said but understood, and she probably did too. To know she was there was enough, and for her to know I was around was probably too. Sometimes that's all people ever really need. Just to know.

Two lost things that had survived the seas and arrived on a coastline. What did they do? They implanted themselves in the sand and grew into trees and lined the beaches. Sometimes a lot can come of being all washed up. You can really grow.

I don't want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory.

Any tightrope walker can walk in a straight line and hold a cane at the same time. It's the balancing on the rope at those dizzying heights that they have to practise

I never grew up thinking the goal in life was to be a millionaire. All the way through college, I had a part-time job. I worked hard to get the things that you need at that age.