Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true. - Salman Rushdie

An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded in flight, the earth mutated — nearly — into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted. Long before she ever encountered the mountain, Allie was aware of its brooding presence in her soul.

When you pray for what you most want in the world, its opposite comes along with it. I was given a woman whom I truly loved and who truly loved me. The opposite side of such a love is the pain of its loss. I can only feel such pain today because until yesterday I knew that love.

Beware the man (or jinni) of action when he finally seeks to better himself with thought. A little thinking is a dangerous thing.