“You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses...”

“Our personal fears and emotions are at times stronger than public danger. By keeping them secret, we allow them to remain malignant. You need to be able to articulate something if you want it to go...”

“I searched modern fiction and poetry for clues to how we confronted and evaded reality, how we articulated our experience and turned to language not to revel ourselves but to hide. I was as sure th...”

“...these sleepless nights, when oddly enough my concentration was high, fueled perhaps by the effort to ignore the all-engrossing threat of bombs and rockets.”

“I was reminded of a painter friend who had started her career by depicting scenes from life, mainly deserted rooms, abandoned houses and discarded photographs of women. Gradually, her work became m...”

“All our lives my brother and I were caught by the fictions my parents told usfictions about themselves as well as others. Each wanted us to judge the other in his or her favor. Sometimes I felt che...”

“This is an ode to life.The anthem of the world.For as there are billionsof different stars thatmake up the skyso, too, are there billions of different humans thatmake up the Earth.Some shine bright...”

“Humans recognize the duality, autonomy, and latitude range of the mind and the body, and all humans comprehend their impending mortality. Unlike other animals, humankind knows despair brought about...”

“...our souls may be consumed by shadows, but that doesn't mean we have to behave as monsters.”

“None of us can choose where we shall love...”

“There are so many men, all endlessly attempting to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me, lest I fall.”

“Whales feel cohesion, a sense of community, of loyalty. The distress call of a lone whale is enough to prompt its entire pod to rush to its side- a gesture that lands them nose to nose in the same ...”

“Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.”

“People dont realize, he said, how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart. J. Krishnamurti. The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any goo...”

“It is beyond a doubt that everyone should have time for some special delight, if only five minutes each day to seek out a lovely flower or cloud or star, or learn a verse to brighten anothers dull ...”