Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power.

That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there's the business of war.

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.

...a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.

She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct threats to her furniture.

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.

There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.

The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

The primary purpose of life is in being in the NOW.

Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.

Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.

La volaille est pour la cuisine ce qu'est la toile pour les peintres. Fowls are to the kitchen what his canvas is to the painter.

Leo knew next to nothing about governesses, save for the drab creatures in novels, who tended to fall in love with the lord of the manor, always with bad results.

Character is the best security.

What makes a man stand up and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.