Those who were on the inside, the majority that is, for them it had been hard to get his point, mostly they were just pleased that they were on the inside, that they were the fittest. For those on the outside, the fear and abandonment amounts to almost everything; everybody knows that. Understanding is something one does best when one is on the borderline.

I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.

I don't fall in love anymore. Just like I don't get the mumps.

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

Some thoughts have glue on them.----Smilla

He boils milk with fresh ginger, a quarter of a vanilla bean, and tea that is so dark and fine-leaved that it looks like black dust. He strains it and puts cane sugar in both our cups. There's something euphorically invigorating and yet filling about it. It tastes the way I imagine the Far East must taste.

..That's where we humans make a mistake. We don't see the utterly amazing when it comes to us disguised as the ordinary.