Pierre Loti

My sister and my brother, of whom I have not spoken before, were considerably older than I; it seemed almost as if we belonged to different generations.

Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine.

And all around is the desert; a corner of the mournful kingdom of sand.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.