“He feels a second pang now for the existence of perfection, the stubborn existence of perfection in the most vulnerable of things and in the face of his refusal-logical-admirable refusal-to engage with this existence in his heart, in his mind. For the comfortless logic, the curse of clear sight, no matter which string he pulls on the same wretched knot: (a) the futility of seeing given the fatality in a place such as this where a mother still bloody must bury her newborn, hose off, and go home to pound yam into paste; (b) the persistence of beauty, in fragility of all places!, in a dewdrop at daybreak, a thing that will end, and in moments, and in a garden, and in Ghana, lush Ghana, soft Ghana, verdant Ghana, where fragile things die.”
“I have a very simple philosophy of life: Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness. Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up. Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, it s to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total.”
“Sitting outside on a dark night, under the stars, invites confidences amongst people of all ages, and all walks of life. It invokes an intimacy you don’t find under most other circumstances.”
“If we possess narrative sympathy - enabling us to see the world from other s point of view - we cannot kill. If we do not, we cannot love.”
“إن الأمور لا تتحسن مع الوقت ، بل نحن الذي نعتاد سُوأَها”
“The impatient idealist says: Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth. But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.”
“বড় বোকামিগুলি বুদ্ধিমান মানুষরাই করে।”
“Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.”
“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.”
“We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.”
“Red stimulates and excites your nerves, pulse rate and blood circulation, and lends energy to your entire system. When you are fatigued, lethargic or sluggish for any reason, red has an energizing influence.”
“Your own thoughts can be your worst enemy!”
“It is this idea decency should be attached to wealth -and indecency to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual s morals ?”