“You can widen the feet of a compass, but they are still attached at the top; you can spin them away from each other, but you always wind up where you started.”

“The times when you are suffering can be those when you are most open, and where you are extremely vulnerable can be where you greatest strength really lies.Say to yourself: ‘I am not going to run away from this suffering. I want to use it in the best and richest way I can, so that I can become more compassionate and more helpful to others.’Suffering, after all, can teach us about compassion. If you suffer you will know how it is when others suffer. And if you are in a position to help others, it is through your suffering that you will find the understanding and compassion to do so.”

“Furniture or gold can be taken away from you, but knowledge and a new language can easily be taken from one place to the other, and nobody can take them away from you.”

“Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.”

“How can you ricochet from a moment where you are on top of the world to one where you are crawling at rock bottom”

“You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others...”