Colonialism is a terrible bane for a people upon whom it is imposed, but a blessing for a language. English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, it shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar-the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved.

Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?

Christianity is a religion in a rush.

Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!

In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.

...for everything has a trace of the divine in it.

I felt I was beating a rainbow to death