“It is a terrible thing to feel sorry for one’s mother or indeed father. And it’s an additionally awful thing to feel this and to know the impotence of the adolescent to do anything at all about it. Worse still, perhaps, is the selfish consolation that it isn’t really one’s job to rear one’s parents.”

“The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.”

“No one’s place in this world is guaranteed. Not everyone is going to get a happy ending. But life isn’t about how it ends. It’s about the moments between.”

“A person has an idea about foreign policy or doesn't know one’s arse from one’s elbow.”

“I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky — that’s all it is. It’s not a matter of intellect or logic, it’s loving with one’s inside, with one’s stomach.”

“To feel one’s attachment to a certain region, one’s love for acertain group of men, to know that there is always a spot whereone’s heart will feel at peace these are many certainties for a singlehuman life. And yet this is not enough. But at certain momentseverything yearns for that spiritual home”