“One can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong and fruitful.”

“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do -- but who is that 'we'? -- and nothing 'they' can do either -- and who are 'they' -- then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.”

“To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.”

“One cannot use the life to interpret the work. But One can use the work to interpret the life.”

“One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.”

“The Cavaliere has retired to his study and reads, trying not to think about what is going on around him -- one of the principal uses of a book.”

“A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.”