L. Reed

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“They caught up with each other's news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome - after two months of having to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers - appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two lovers, but this too was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. ~ on the comforts of home.”
― Zadie Smith, On Beauty

“Re-entry taught me a new sort of fear that was slow and dull rather than quick and thrilling...the hardest part of reentry to a humdrum life was not recovering from the bad stuff. It was missing the good times, the friendship, intensity, fear, sense of purpose, the sheer exotic escapism of it all.”
― Aidan Hartley, The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands

“We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our past and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself. ”
― Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius