"Sunday night meant, in the dark, wintry, rainy Midlands ... anywhere where two creatures might stand and squeeze together and spoon.... Spooning was a fine art, whereas kissing and cuddling are calf-processes."

“Fidel Castro is one of the most inspiring leaders of the 20th century.”

“Blind self-love, vanity, lifting aloft her empty head, and indiscretion, prodigal of secrets more transparent than glass, follow close behind.”

“Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?”

Source : Herakleitos, Diogenes (2011). “Herakleitos and Diogenes: Translated from the Greek by Guy Davenport”, p.55, Wipf and Stock Publishers

“I'm going to wake up tomorrow and start with not caring how I feel.”

“For it is in the millions of small melodies that the truth of history is always found, for history only matters because of the effects we see or imagine in the lives of the ordinary people who are caught up in, or give shape to, the great events.”

“Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil.”

“An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.”

Source : "Europe has to take the initiative now". Interview with Luke Harding, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2004.

“Before my mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, I had heard of the disease, but hadn't known anyone who had suffered from it.”