“You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted.”

“Remember, you can be exalted without a college degree. You can be exalted without being slender and beautiful. You can be exalted without having a successful career. You can be exalted if you are not rich and famous. So focus the best that you can on those things in life that will lead you back to the presence of God - keeping all things in their proper balance.”

“I am looking at you and you are looking at me. This is very good. I am looking and I am liking. You are looking and you are thinking, 'I hope she doesn't hit me with her crop.' But that is because I am me and you are you.”

“I am in the Aleph, the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I'm at a window, looking out at the world and its secret places, poetry lost in time and words left hanging in space...sentences that are perfectly understood, even when left unspoken. Feelings that simultaneously exalt and suffocate.”

“If he exalts himself, I humble him.If he humbles himself, I exalt him.And I go on contradicting himUntil he understandsThat he is a monster that passes all understanding.”

“Mildred waves Carlos over. 'Let me look at you.' She eyes him up and down. 'I saw you when you walked in. What's with all those tattoos? Makes you look like a hooligan.''I suspect I am a hooligan,' he says to her. 'Whatever that means.”