What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.

because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.

I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print, the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig-tree.

I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.

My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.

I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.

I may have made a straight A in physics, but I was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I learned it.

The Bible tells us, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven", which means heaven that is the true world will become one's own when he discards his false mind completely.

Do no drown me with mediocrity, give me passion, desire, make me inhale breaths of lust and love in the dark hours that tingle down my spine...

We all have our secrets

It seemed ironic to her that women were considered far too meek for the morbidity of war, and yet a child could give their life in a battle they did not even understand.

I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

I believe in this tragic hour you can make the right choice. The honor and glory of Russian men of arms shall not be stained with the blood of the people.

Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten.

Your network is your net worth. How do you value your network? Well, if you don't value it, cultivate it, nurture it, it becomes worthless. If you do value it, it becomes priceless.

Exorcism is a subject that interests me, and books on shamanism, I've read through.