I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.

Human beings are ultimately nothing but carriers-passageways- for genes. They ride us into the ground like racehorses from generation to generation. Genes don't think about what constitutes good or evil. They don't care whether we are happy or unhappy. We're just means to an end for them. The only thing they think about is what is most efficient for them.

I hate requests. They make me feel unhappy. It's like when I take a book out of the library. As soon as I start to read it, all I can think about is when I'll finish it.

I was thirty-seven then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to the Hamburg airport.

All right, then, I thought: here I am in the bottom of a well.

Life: I'll never understand it.

Wasn't it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core-- a tiny flame to cup one's hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish.