poverty denotes a lack of necessities and simplicity a lack of needs.

... strong bonds are forged in high emotional temperatures.

apartheid still hangs in the air like a poisonous cloud left over from chemical warfare.

Undoubtedly the Afghans must be, by our standards, the best-looking people in the world. They have everything; height, proportions, carriage, features and complexion.

the sudden violent dispossession accompanying a refugee flight is much more than the loss of a permanent home and a traditional occupation, or than the parting from close friends and familiar places. It is also the death of the person one has become in a particular context, and every refugee must be his or her own midwife at the painful process of rebirth.

To me writing was not a career but a necessity. And so it remains, though I am now, technically, a professional writer. The strength of this inborn desire to write has always baffled me. It is understandable that the really gifted should feel an overwhelming urge to use their gift; but a strong urge with only a slight gift seems almost a genetic mistake.

hatred, however apparently justifiable, excusable or inevitable, always damages the hater.