“I was wrenched awake at the tail-end of a stifled scream. I fought my way up from a deep dark dream. The scream had been mine.”

“no-one would want to go through a traumatic experience but when youve survived something life-shattering and risen above it, you achieve a kind of serenity.”

“The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart.”

“I wished I could paint this ineffable beauty but I had never been artistic. I hadnt even packed a camera, and my phone was out of charge. It didnt matter. I just breathed in the feeling, savouring ...”

“We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possibl...”

“... how could Britain operate in India for 300 years and take so little back from it in terms of understanding?”

“There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sp...”

“My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are...”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

“Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can'...”

“It always struck me in years after how bizarre it was, how two people could look at one another with such tenderness and complete love, and how quickly that could dissolve into nothing but bitterness.”

“Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.”

“Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.”

“You're not free unless you come to the place where you have nothing to prove.”

“A man who has HEALTH has a thousand dreams, but a man without HEALTH has only one.”