The past is an obdurate stranger that puts as many marks on us as we attempt to impose on it.

If you want to know what's important to a culture, learn their language.

All those moments, those memories. Everything that we are, compressed in just two or three kilos of paper — the weight of a human heart.

Places do not lose their identity, however far one travels. It is the heart that begins to erode over time. The face in the hotel mirror seems blurred some mornings, as if by too many casual looks. By ten the sheets will be laundered, the carpet swept. The names on the hotel registers change as we pass. We leave no trace as we pass on. Ghostlike, we cast no shadow.

Remember, it's the winners write the history books, and the losers get the leavings.

Some people spend the whole of their lives sitting waiting for one train, only to find that they never even made it to the station.

I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I'm going to be immoderate--and volatile--I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.