"We form our impression not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally, by comparing ourselves to people in the same boat as ourselves."

"It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?"

"And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended."

"Whenever you are examining someone else's belongings, you are bound to learn many interesting things about the person of which you were not previously aware."

"Human suffering has been caused because too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use.The mere presence in the dictionary of a word like 'living' does not mean it necessarily has to refer to something definite in the real world."

"The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all."