Never do I close my door behind me without being conscious that I am carrying out an act of charity towards myself.

I have sat in the dark and looked at them both, the child and the woman. And the feeling has become too much. It is not sorrow or joy; it is the weight and the pressure of having been brought into their lives, and of knowing that if one were ever to be separated from them, it would mean your obliteration.

There is one way to understand another culture. Living it. Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language.

Do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing? ... The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something.

We think there are limits to the dimensions of fear. Until we encounter the unknown. Then we can all feel boundless amounts of terror.

It may be necessary to stand on the outside of one is to see things clearly.

Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.