A real stunner. Want to get swept up on a journey you will never forget and never quite escape? Open THE RITUAL OF ILLUSION and let its magic leap out, grab you, take you places unlike you have ever known.
I had the constitution of a missionary.
You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or you’d never, ever stop grieving.
But I plucked a new, different, worldly soul for myself -- maybe a soul I found in the spray thrown up by the surge of that distant African river as it plummets onto black rocks and sends up into the sun a permanent arc of a rainbow.
One of the things about being raised British in Africa is that you get this double whammy of toughness. The continent in place itself made you quite tough. And then you've got this British mother whose entire being rejects 'coddling' in case it makes you too soft. So there's absolutely nothing standing between you and a fairly rough experience.
I am becoming increasingly difficult to please as a reader, but I adore being surprised by a really wonderful book, written by someone I've never heard of before.
How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.
Truly different behaviors require truly distinct situations.
There's no person God cannot reach.
I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.