An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded in flight, the earth mutated--nearly--into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted. Long before she ever encountered the mountain, Allie was aware of its brooding presence in her soul.

An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.

Reality is a question of perspective.

I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they're both amazing ways to understand human nature.

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.