“We have a saying, in the Pashto language, and the meaning of it is that you are not a man until you give your love, truly and freely, to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return.”
“Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism’ is the worse. People do what they want to, every time. If it pains them to make a choice – if the choice looks like a 'sacrifice’ – you can be sure that it is no nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness… the necessity of deciding between two things you want when you can’t have both. The ordinary bloke suffers every time he chooses between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up to go to work or losing his job. But he always chooses what hurts least or pleasures most. The scoundrel and the saint make the same choices on a larger scale.”