After A Certain Age - And For

When A Book's Pattern And The Shape Of Its Inner Life Is As Plain To The Reader As It Is To The Author -- Then Perhaps It Is Time To Throw The Book Aside, As Having Had Its Day, And Start Again On Something New.

Humanity's Legacy Of Stories And Storytelling Is The Most Precious We Have. All Wisdom Is In Our Stories And Songs. A Story Is How We Construct Our Experiences.

I Think People Are Always Looking For Gurus. It's The Easiest Thing In The World To Become A Guru. It's Quite Terrifying. I Once Saw Something Fascinating Here In New York. It Must Have Been In The Early Seventies--guru Time. A Man Used To Go And Sit In Central Park, Wearing Elaborate Golden Robes. He Never Once Opened His Mouth, He Just Sat. He'd Appear At Lunchtime. People Appeared From Everywhere, Because He Was Obviously A Holy Man, And This Went On For Months. They Just Sat Around Him In Reverent Silence. Eventually He Got Fed Up With It And Left. Yes. It's As Easy As That.

Women's Emotions Are Still Fitted For A Kind Of Society That No Longer Exists. My Deep Emotions, My Real Ones, Are To Do With My Relationship With A Man. One Man. But I Don't Live That Kind Of Life, And I Know Few Women Who Do. So What I Feel Is Irrelevant And Silly.

In Shanghai, I Saw Great Contrasts. On One Street There Would Be Impressive Shops Selling Copies Of The Latest Word In Glamorous European Fashion, And Around The Corner On A Back Street There Were Poor Families Crammed Into One Room With A Naked Light Bulb. One Evening I Heard A Chinese Family Singing "happy Birthday." It Was Weird. You Would Have Thought That They'd Have Their Own Happy Birthday Song. Every Dominant Society In The World - Whether It's French Or British Or American - Imposes Its Culture On Less Developed Societies.