Baltasar Gracian

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

Work is the price which is paid for reputation.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

In early 1993, when I was 12, I was separated from my family as the Sierra Leone civil war, which began two years earlier, came into my life.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.