the past is so hard to shift. It comes with us like a chaperon, standing between us and the newness of the present - the new chance.

Why is the measure of love loss?

Yes, the stories are dangerous, she was right. A book is a magic carpet that flies you off elsewhere. A book is a door. You open it. You step through. Do you come back?

...there are two kinds of writing: the one you write and the one that writes you.

Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out.

Six books… my mother didn’t want books falling into my hands. It never occurred to her that I fell into the books – that I put myself inside them for safe keeping.

Sometimes you have to live in precarious and temporary places. Unsuitable places. Wrong places. Sometimes the safe place won't help you.

Where you are born--what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own-- stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say.

Memory loss is one way of coping with damage.

To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.

We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember. But we don't.

A man who takes into consideration the feelings of others even when arranging the manner of his own death shows a nobility of character which compels the admiration of all classes.

Release the stress you are holding. Feel the tension leave your body. Now, look at the root of your stress. Find your solution in a moment of calm, not anxiety.

Identify your life mission and gift

Nature is not kind

I don't want fear or cancer to define me, but it's always in the back of your mind.

I feel like you don't know if someone's equipped for a romantic relationship until they're out of their twenties.

time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.

You may believe you're an excellent rider," he called, "but there are a score of Temujai back there who actually are.

People who accomplish a great many things are people who have freed themselves from biases. These are the creative people.