The paradox: there can be no pilgrimage without a destination, but the destination is also not the real point of the endeavor. Not the destination, but the willingness to wander in pursuit characterizes pilgrimage. Willingness: to hear the tales along the way, to make the casual choices of travel, to acquiesce even to boredom. That's pilgrimage -- a mind full of journey.

No memoirists writes for long without experiencing an unsettling disbelief about the reliability of memory, a hunch that memory is not, after all, just memory.

We only store in memory images of value. To write about one's life is to live it twice, and the second time is both spiritual and historical.

It's always a thrilling risk to say exactly what you mean, to express exactly what you see.

Poverty didn't necessarily engender an envy of wealth; sometimes it might beget a passion for decency.

People come and go in life, but they never leave your dreams. Once they're in your subconscious, they are immortal.

What is remembered is what becomes reality.