“It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.”

“Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place,...”

“It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to ea...”

“She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then? She hoped...”

“..what moved me was that I had found something I didn't think could exist. And that thing - the thing that I found - was very simple. Most people know all about it and have never really doubted it ...”

“If she was going to remain an engaged lady, then she would make the most of it, and one of the ways to do this would be to enjoy her free time.”

“Think about your own life. Are there foods or drinks that call your name in your weakest momentslike maybe at night in front of the TV? Are there certain treats you can hardly resist when theyre in...”

“It's all very Italian (and decidedly un-American): to insist that doing the right thing is the most pleasurable thing, and that the act of consumption might be an act of addition rather than subtra...”

“I'd like to lose enough weight so that my bones creaked louder than the floor”

“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to resc...”

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe.”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”