“Grief produces an abundant energy that must find a way to burn itself up. And that is the fundamental problem, one that can take a lifetime to exhaust.”

“Expats of any country are quick to lose their sense of humour, beaten down by a lifetime of defending the land they no longer live in.”

“Surely, when looking back, our lives can, for the most part, be accounted for in our interactions with others. That is where memories are stored, in one another. And yet each person is unique enough in his or her own thoughts that no two people are going to remember the same experience in the same way.”

“The one thought Conan had on the spot about the half hour at 11:35 was that it would likely exacerbate the problem he already had with Leno. 'So at least now, Jay does his show, but there's the break of the news, and that's kind of the reset button,' Conan said to Gaspin and Graboff. 'At 11:35 Jay's going to come out and do twenty jokes. And then what's he going to do?'When they replied that it seemed likely he would have only one guest, Conan said, 'OK. And then I come out and do what?'The NBC guys didn't really have an answer for that other than what Conan had already been doing: his own monologue. That this now seemed like a late-night pileup - three shows with monologues lined up end to end - was the implication no one had really addressed.Finally Conan did have something he really wanted to say, something that had almost burned a hole in his chest. 'What does Jay have on you?' Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. 'What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”

“That week we tried everything to bury our heads in the sand. But the problem remains the same world over; the sand is never quite deep enough.”

“I watched the refugee kids swim. They are easy to spot. They are the ones whose mothers stand on the shore watching the horizon instead of their child.”

“It's my experience that people want to do something, but become confused by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, not knowing what to do, and in the end do the only thing they believe they possibly can: nothing.”