If you want to support others you have to stay upright yourself.

Confronted with people who have power, and who enjoy using it, I turn into a different person, a baser and meaner one.

I like him. I have a weakness for losers. Invalids, foreigners, the fat boy of the class, the ones nobody ever wants to dance with. My heart beats for them. Maybe because I've always known that in some way I will forever be one of them.

Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.

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.

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

If you want to support others you have to stay upright yourself.