Her mother stared in quiet awe of this more artful rearrangement of her genetic code, and slipped into a contentedness that usually appeared only after the red wine had fallen below the bottle label.

She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency.

We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

She wouldn't climb out of the bed for her sister, but she had climbed into a crater. She wouldn't cross a room, but she had crossed a continent.

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Then Brezhnev grabbed the wheel of power and captained the country with the exploratory heart of a municipal bus driver.

No one can take what's inside your head once it's there.

You will have the last word.' 'Your name will be that word.

She felt as buoyantly patriotic as her Chechen classmates who could trace their family trees back to the acorns

Time became more important the closer to death one was, so an extra few hours to make peace with the world were worth more than years.

But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

Universe is frightening

I don't know anything except being female, so I don't know the opposite of it.

The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time.

Glamour is back, but with a minimalist touch.

All you can do is all you can do.

There are four different theories concerning Divine Providence; they are all ancient, known from the time of the Prophets, when the true law was revealed to enlighten these dark regions.

The true touchstone of wit is the impromptu.

I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.

I think the golf swing is all about rotation, all about trying to keep the club on plane.