You know, once something freezes, it's solid. That's the key to the arctic - they didn't fear the cold, they made use of it.

The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.

To have that powder blown up your nose is rather like being shot out of a rifle barrel lined with Baroque paintings and landing on a sea of electricity.

Risk discomfort and solitude for understanding.

If we accept that we are all cut from the same genetic cloth, all cultures share the same genius. And whether that genius is placed into technological wizardry which has been our great achievement, or, by contrast, placed into the unraveling of complex threads of memory inherent in a myth is simply a matter of choice.

Language is an old-growth forest of the mind.

Only, in Haiti, I realized, is it possible to drink rum and haggle with a god.