“I decided that my initial survival strategy would involve declaring my complete ignorance of what was going on. This would not,naturally, be terribly hard to do.”

“I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life. ”

“I decided I would go with them, but it would be at my father's house that I would eat. I would share his food, and his poverty.”

“I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.”

“Later, in my adulthood, I will read the book again, even watch the movie, and understand that I wasn’t equipped, as a child, to make room for arguments that would undermine every single choice made for me, that would shatter the foundations of my very existence. I would see that I had to believe everything I was taught, if only to survive. For a long time I wouldn’t be ready to accept that my worldview could be wrong, but I do not look back with shame at my ignorance.”

“Living in a foreign country is one of those things that everyone should try at least once. My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world. What I find appealing in life abroad was the inevitable sense of helplessness it would inspire. Equally exciting would be the work involved in overcoming that helplessness. There would be a goal involved, and I like having goals.”