Our own country seemed more polarized than it's ever been and since the two terrorist attacks of 9/11, religion was in greater disrepute than at any other time in my lifetime.

Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.

So travel for me is an act of discovery and of responsibility as well a grand adventure and a constant liberation.

I often think we're most happy when we forget the time.

You can see exile as loss, and then it will be a loss for you. You can treat it as opportunity and then all kinds of benefits accrue.

None of the things in life - like love or faith - was arrived at by thinking; indeed, one could almost define the things that mattered as the ones that came as suddenly as thunder.

Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.