I take the world very personally. I take history personally; I want to place myself in the larger context.

I think what you can’t see is always what you should be frightened of.

What thrills me about trains is not their size or their equipment but the fact that they are moving, that they embody a connection between unseen places.

Wherever love comes from, whatever is its genesis, it isn’t like a quantity of gold or diamonds, even water in the earth-a fixed quantity, Fos thought. You can’t use up love, deplete it at its source. Love exists beyond fixed limits. Beyond what you can see or count.

Asking anyone what she or he is reading is a necessary part of conversation, exchanging news. So I take recommendations from friends - and I always pass along a book I've loved.

There is only ever one answer to the question what did you do with your life, and it's the same--fleeting and unknowable--for every one of us. I lived.

You think you know someone by looking at his face but what can one face say about the thousand thoughts behind those eyes.