Quotes by Pico Iyer

“What more could one ask of a companion? To be forever new and yet forever steady. To be strange and familiar all at once, with enough change to quicken my mind, enough steadiness to give sanctuary to my heart. The books on my shelf never asked to come together, and they would not trust or want to listen to one another; but each is a piece of a stained-glass whole without which I couldn’t make sense to myself, or to the world outside.””

“it’s not our experiences that form us but the ways in which we respond to them;””

“Serendipity was my tour guide, assisted by caprice””

“A comma . . . catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling, and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table.””

“Perhaps the greatest danger of our global community is that the person in LA thinks he knows Cambodia because he's seen on-screen, and the newcomer from Cambodia thinks he knows LA because he's seen on video.””

“Sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it;””

“None of the things in life - like love or faith - was arrived at by thinking; indeed, one could almost define the things that mattered as the ones that came as suddenly as thunder.””

“... epiphanies rarely repeat themselves.””

“Finding a sanctuary, a place apart from time, is not so different from finding a faith.””

“The open road is the school of doubt in which man learns faith in man.””

“one is reminded, at a level deeper than all words, how making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite directions.””

“More and more of us feel like emergency-room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the clutter on our desk. •””

“In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.””