Only under extreme pressure can we change into that which it is in our most profound nature to become . . . That is what people get wrong about tran… - Salman Rushdie

Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth's breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force.

Children going to school, a congregation in a synagogue, shoppers in a supermarket, a man on the stage of an amphitheater are all, so to speak, inhabiting a stable picture of the world. A school is a place of education. A synagogue is a place of worship. A supermarket is a place to shop. A stage is a performance space. That’s the frame in which they see themselves. Violence smashes that picture. Suddenly they don’t know the rules — what to say, how to behave, what choices to make. They no longer know the shape of things. Reality dissolves and is replaced by the incomprehensible

A book is not completed till it's read.