“Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different. Where did the expression "a place in the sun" first come from? My rational thought process cling always to the idea of free will, random event; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate. ”

“Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.”

“If I lived here,...I have a feeling this place would take me.”

“Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don't talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign. ”

“All afternoon in the deck chair, I try to describe to my notebook the colors of the water and sky. How to translate sunlight into words?”

“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.”

“Although I am a person who expected to be rooted in one spot forever, as it has turned out I love having the memories of living in many places.”