"Agony without genius was gaucherie."

“It is the function of women to teach men how to be human.”

Source : Ashley Montagu (1999). “The Natural Superiority of Women”, p.232, Rowman Altamira

“New York to Tokyo could be less than an hour. You could be traveling at 19,000 miles per hour orbitally. After we've done the space program, we will be producing supersonic planes, which will go far, far, faster than Concorde.”

“Dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled that men were not ashamed of being deceived but twice by him.”

“It's a GIRL. It's a little girl, with scrunched-up petal lips and a tuft of dark hair and hands in tiny fits, up by her ears. All that time, that's who was in there. And it's weird, but the minute I saw her I just thought: IT'S YOU. Of course it is.”

“Just studying Buddhism, then meditating and going to Buddhist monasteries, talking to Buddhist monks, combined with the Thai people themselves, changed the way I look at the world.”

Source : "Thai Air. John Burdett on 'Bangkok Haunts'". "Austin Chronicle" Interview, www.austinchronicle.com. June 15, 2007.

“You can't do good work on a short-term contract. You need to be engaged over a period of time.”

“Deep and sustainable change...requires changes in behavior among those who do not welcome the change.”

“The indignity of it!- With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whole fields lovely and inviolate,- Me down in the fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave.”