"Stories come alive in the telling. (…)They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read."

"Thrift of time will repay you in afterlife with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning."

"The genocide [in Rwanda] was not a spontaneous eruption of tribal hatred, it was planned by people wanting to keep power. There was a long government-led hat campaign against the Tutsis."

"But what is unjust? That depends on a person's thoughts, values, and beliefs. People differ sharply on what is just or unjust in this world. Thus, some people become angry much quicker than others."

"The screws have brought all the revenge attacks on themselves. Most prisoners that have done some nasty damage in the system have come through the young offenders, where that was just a breeding ground for hatred from the screws point of view. They were famous for bullying and battering young, defenceless boys to the point of death, in some cases."

"Ah, well,ʺ said Abe, idly studying his fingertips. ʺI have it on good authority thereʹs going to be a new ‘gateʹ opening up soon over on the south side of the wall.'The truth dawned on me. ʺOh lord. Youʹre the one whoʹs been doling out C4.ʺʺYou make it sound so easy,ʺ he said with a frown. ʺThat stuffʹs hard to get a hold of."

"The epiphany machine will not discover anything about you that you do not, in some way, already know. But think for a moment about surprise. What is surprising is never what is revealed but the grace with which it has been hidden."