Such is the vastness of his genius that he can outwit even himself.

He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.

A story invites both writer and reader into a kind of superficial ease: we want to slide along, pleasingly entertained, lost in the fictional dream.

Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?

I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.

If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life? We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?

The heart of wisdom is tolerance.