Catherine Oughtibridge

“One of the parrots was very friendly with...Master of the Robes. He used to feed it nuts. As it nibbled from his fingers, he used to stroke its head, at which the bird appeared to enter a state of ecstasy. I very much wanted this kind of friendliness and several times tried to get a similar response, but to no avail. So I took a stick to punish it. Of course, thereafter it fled at the sight of me. This was a very good lesson in how to make friends: not by force but by compassion.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama

“Towers are monuments in decline, you only have to build them and someone comes and knocks them down.”
― Lina Meruane, Sangre en el ojo

“Explain that to me! Cows? I sighed buying time to think. Cows or oxen or donkeys or idiot peasants or whatever you call thse damned animals that almost killed us! They didn’t have lights and they were going very, very slowly through an impossible fog. And wait, joder, I can’t believe it, there ahead of us is a truck right across the road, trying to make a U-turn! Are all Chileans crazy?”
― Lina Meruane, Sangre en el ojo

“When you travel your first discovery is that you do not exist.”
― Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights