Every country has its cocktail-party question. A simple one-sentence query, the answer to which unlocks a motherlode of information about the person you just met.... In Switzerland it is, Where are you from? That is all you need to know about someone.

Reason cannot account for those moments in life that "bewilder the intellect yet utterly quiet the heart," as G.K. Chesterton observed.

A Mozart symphony is very much like a Pixar movie - in the sense that Pixar movies are hugely successful because they operate on several levels at the same time.

For me, a place unvisited is like an unrequited love. A dull ache that- try as you might to think it away, to convince yourself that she really wasn't the right country for you- just won't leave you in peace.

We can't love a place or a person if we always have one foot out the door.

Genius is not only a what or a who, it is a where. It is grounded in a place every single time.

Believing in everything looks a lot like believing in nothing.