“In the new quiet I heard the sea as if my ears were laid against the ocean floor. I could hear everything. The rumbling earthquake of a ship and spider crabs moving between weeds.”

“I have always wanted to go to Trieste because it sounds like tristesse, which is a light-hearted word, even though in French it means sadness. In Spanish it is tristeza, which is heavier than Frenc...”

“She had no God to plead to for mercy or luck. It would be true to say she depended instead on human kindness and painkillers.”

“I have researched aboriginal culture, Mayan hieroglyphics and the corporate culture of a Japanese car manufacturer, and I have written essays on the internal logic of various other societies, but I...”

“My problem is that I want to smoke the cigar and for someone else to light it. I want to blow out smoke. Like a volcano. Like a monster. I want to fume. I do not want to be the girl whose job it is...”

“Afterwards, I will have to tie the trees to bamboo poles so the wind will not determine their shape. A tree cannot be given form by the vagaries of the wind.”

“-Paint-My girlfriend is so besotted that she can't take her eyes off me. After we've turned out the light she puts on her night-vision goggles, and watched me as I sleep. Quite often I am woken by ...”

“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”

“A man had better study what a human being is, because he's marrying one - assuming that merely being one has not been sufficient stimulus to that study.”

“The devil's happy when the critics run you off.”

“Love, like Fortune, favours the bold.”

“I would say that Op 31 had brought music just to the very edge I just simply drew back and said, beyond that lies complete chaos.”

“If you are not willing to stand up for anything or anybody, then why should the Creator take a single step to help you?”

“If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned, and of poor judgment, I will. And I would be damned if I cared what other people think. For I w...”

“To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.”