“Once we love, we cannot revoke it,' she said. 'We can only glory in what it brings -- pain as well as joy, grief as well as hope.”

“To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before”

“Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength. Stealing our will, for what are we without empathy? What manner of joy might we find in our live if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community.”

“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”

“Once we understand how they think, we can predict their behaviour. And once we predict it well, we can manipulate it. That is diplomacy.”

“Permanence, I once copied down from a magazine, is what we all want when we can love and can be loved; change is what we want when we cannot.”