We touched with a softness that pushed through the skin into memory, like arms plunged into a river - we could feel the weight of each other's stones.

Succes is really nothing more than the record of failure. To be successful means you must be willing to fail more than anyone else.

If you travel too often, you actually come face-to-face with what you're trying to escape. I feel like when I travel alone, sometimes it's like being locked in a hotel room with my own worst enemy.

I think you can love someone and be infatuated with them, too. But infatuation is immediate, while the sort of love in the West is something you build with someone. It's a trust.

Relationships break down, because it's about self. But when you take the "I" out of it and you're like, how can I make them happy, that means sacrifice. I think you have to be prepared to sacrifice, and a lot of people just aren't willing to. You have to give up a piece of yourself. By doing that, you get a greater sense of who you are. When you give something up, you need to fill the space where it used to be, and you understand the landscape in yourself a bit more.

Some studies show that we're physically attracted, like animal attraction, to people that have a different immune system to us. So even though I love cologne, it's probably keeping me from finding a good mate.

I think we keep these moments of rejection and acceptance very close. I think we carry them always, like cracked shells from which a part of us once hatched.