Change the way you think, and you are halfway to changing the world.

The French have made conversation their claim to civilisation.

What we make of people, and what we see in the mirror when we look at ourselves, depends on what we know of the world, what we believe to be possible, what memories we have, and whether our loyalties are to the past, the present or the future.

The great thing about marriage is that it creates trust, the most precious of things.

The institution of marriage, if you look at it over many centuries, has come and gone.

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.

Only when people learn to converse will they begin to be equal.