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"never repay hatred with hatred, but with justice. the world does not divide up into enemies and friends, but into the weak and the strong. the strong are the generous in victory. the weak gang up on the losers, unaware that defeat is only a transitory thing."

"meanwhile, if someone merely wishes to provoke you, shake the dust from your feet and carry on. only fight with a worthy opponent, not with someone who uses trickery to prolong a war that is already over, as does sometimes happen. such cruelty does not come from the warriors who meet on the battlefield and know why they are there, but from those who manipulate victory and defeat for their own ends."

"but do not fight in order to prove that you are right or to impose your ideas or ideals on someone else. only accept the fight as a way of keeping your spirit clean and your will spotless. when the fight is over, both sides will emerge as winners, because they tested their limitations and their abilities."

"although anxiety is part of life, never let it control you...if it tries to persuade you that taking on lots of jobs means having a productive life, say: 'i need time to look at the stars in order to feel inspired and to be able to do my job well.'... it (anxiety) will never disappear, but the great wisdom of life is to realise that we can be the masters of the things that try to enslave us."

"i am aware that there are many people more famous than me and often, that fame is richly deserved. in other cases, it is merely a manifestation of vanity or ambition, and will not stand the test of time. what is success? it is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace."

"do not try to make the road shorter, but travel it in such a way that every action leaves the land more fertile and the landscape more beautiful. do not try to be the master of time. if you pick the fruit you planted too early, it will be green and give pleasure to no one. if, out of fear or insecurity, you decide to put off the moment of making the offering, the fruit will have rotted."

"you must always have a goal in mind, but, as you go along, it costs nothing to stop now and then to enjoy the view around you. as you advance, step by step, you can see a little further into the distance, and take the opportunity to discover things you hadn't even noticed before."

"success comes to those who do not waste time comparing what they are doing with what others are doing; it enters the house of the person who says 'i will do my best' every day. people who seek only success rarely find it, because success is not an end in itself, but consequence."

"avoid at all costs those who are only by your side in moments of sadness to offer consoling words. what they are actually saying to themselves is: 'i am stronger. i am wiser. i would not have taken that step.' stay close to those who are by your side in happy times, because they do not harbour jealousy or envy in their hearts, only joy to see you happy."

"if they once took a wrong and dangerous path, they will never come to you and say: 'don't ever do that.' they will merely say: 'i once took a wrong and dangerous path.' this is because they respect your freedom, just as you respect theirs."

"your friends are the sort who do not wait for things to happen in order to decide which attitude to take; they decide on the spur of the moment, even though they know it could be risky. they are free spirits who can change direction whenever life requires them to. they explore new paths, recount their adventures, and thus enrich both city and the village."

"live the life you always wanted to live. avoid criticising others and concentrate on fulfilling your dreams."

"don't try to be useful. try to be yourself: that is enough, and that makes all the difference. walk neither faster nor slower than your own soul, because it is your soul that will teach you the usefulness of each step you take."

"if you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. and if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void. but the void does not exist. a vast world lies hidden in our soul, waiting to be discovered."

"solitude is not the absence of love, but its complement. solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life. therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge."

"losing a battle or losing everything we thought we possessed will bring us moments of sadness, but when those moments pass we will discover the hidden strength that exists in each of us, a strength that will surprise us and increase our self-respect."

"in the cycle go nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat: there is only movement...both will pass. one will succeed the other. and the cycle will continue until we liberate ourselves from the flesh and find the divine energy."

"the van waits in the driveway, its double doors stand open. the two of them, one on either side now, take me by the elbows to help me in. whether this is my end or a new beginning i have no way of knowing: i have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can't be helped. and so i step up, into the darkness within or else the light."

"so. more waiting. lady in waiting: that's what they used to call those stores where you could buy maternity clothes. woman in waiting sounds more like someone in a train station. waiting is also a place: it is wherever you wait. for me it's this room. i am a blank, here, between parentheses. between other people."

"i put on my clothes, summer clothes, it's still summer; it seems to have stopped at summer. july, its breathless days and sauna nights, hard to sleep. i make a point of keeping track. i should scratch marks on the wall, one for each day of the week...but what would be the use, this isn;t a jail sentence; there's no time here that can be done and finished with."

"but who can remember pain, once it's over? all that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. pain marks you, but too deep to see. out of sight, out of mind."

"maybe they're drugging me. maybe the life i think i'm living is a paranoid delusion. not a hope. i know where i am, and who, and what day it is. these are the tests, and i am sane. sanity is a valuable possession; i hoard it the way people once hoarded money. i save it, so i will have enough, when the time comes."

"i would like to steal something from this room. i would like to take some small thing, the scrolled ashtray, the little silver pillbox from the mantel perhaps, or a dried flower: hide it in the folds of my dress or in my zippered sleeve, keep it there until this evening is over, secrete it in my room...or in a shoe...every once in a while i would take it out and look at it. it would make me feel that i have power."

"i remember walking in art galleries, through the 19th century: the obsession they had then with harems. dozens of paintings of harems, fat women lolling on divans...studies of sedentary flesh painted by men who'd never been there...they are paintings about suspended animation; about waiting, about objects not in use. they were paintings about boredom. but maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men."