When Mexico enjoys an economic boom while the U.S. is in dire fiscal straights, it seemed perfectly credible that Mexico would not roll out the welcome mat for unemployed Americans.

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

My own apathy is bone chilling.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

Human tragedies:We all want to be extraordinaryand we all just want to fit in.Unfortunately, extraordinary people rarely fit in.

It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.

If I had never met him I would have dreamed him into being.

I can't really explain what it's like to be in love, but I feel like it's being comfortable. It's almost like having a best friend. It's a beautiful thing.

Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't -it's human.

Your stockings prove your virtues. Be certain they are clean and free of tears.

The vision of an entire world becoming just like us is at least as discomfiting as the thought that most of it won't.

The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.

An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station.

Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?