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.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

The time-honored role of the artist [is] to speak truth to power.

No story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old.

...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.

In Iran, fundamentalism was fuelled to an extent by the regime of the Shah being supported by the West.

I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.