Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can. - John Irving

Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else’s version of themselves — to anyone else’s version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!

Your memory is a monster; you forget — it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you — and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

She sat keenly white and still among them, a witness to everything — maybe determining nothing, possibly judging it all.