Being afraid of having an endoscopy (if you're a man) and giving birth (if you're a woman).

When you find your way you cannot be scared. You need to be brave enough to take wrong steps. The deceptions, failures, lack of enthusiasm, are tools that God places in our way to reveal the path.

Wearing a scrap of colored cloth around your neck, even though it serves no useful purpose, but which answers to the name of "tie."

When you travel you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak....You begin to be more accessible to others, because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.

When you know how to use it, disobedience can be a virtue.

He remembers the five rules of combat set down by Chuan Tzu - faith, companions, time, space and strategy.

Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.