Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them.

It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions.

I go to Prague every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only love, but admire.

Truth can be costly, but in the end it never falls short of value for the price paid.

I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question.

But when I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.