“Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking up from a long coma.”

“So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!”

“It hadn't taken very long to come clean, after so many years of so many lies. It was surprising how undifferent she felt, now that everything— nearly everything— was out in the open.”

“The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind.However, misfortune can itself sow seeds of creativity.---- Afterword to "Hothouse" Brian Aldiss”

“It was either the wind or the spirit of the house itself, briefly unsettled by our nocturnal absence but to old to be surprised by the errands born from the gap between what we can imagine and what we can in fact create.”

“Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.”