Abra DeMadrigal didn't look young enough to be my sister anymore. Her sorrow weighed her down and aged her. She was still beautiful, but she looked very far away. No wonder our people had raven eyes, so distant, so sad. No matter how wise she was, my mother looked like a woman who hadn't truely believed how much evil there was in our world. Not until this moment.

Your fellow man is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.

Our misery is that we thirst so little for these sublime things, and so much for the mocking trifles of time and space.

A sign of the death of the heart: lack of sadness about beneficial actions you have missed, and lack of regret about your mistakes.

I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.