“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.”

“The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.”

“When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.”

“My sounds [crying] were small and muffled but obvious. No one paid any attention. It was the way we had become. In a world full of sorrows, this was only one more.”

“Nothing, nobody matters. And yet the world is full of love”