Books can be the people we never get to meet, ancestors or far neighbors.

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

The joy of knowing a foreign language is inexpressible. I find it really difficult to express such joy in my mother tongue.

We of alien looks or words must stick together.

One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher.

I didn't plan it," she said. "I hoped that we would both just know when it was time... That we'd have one of those moments. Like in the movies, foreign movies, when something small happens, something almost imperceptible, and it changes everything. Like there's a man and a woman having breakfast... and the man reaches for the jam, and the woman says, "I thought you didn't like jam," and the man says, "I didn't. Once.""Or maybe it isn’t even obvious. Maybe he reaches for the jam, and she just looks at him like she doesn't know him anymore. Like, in the moment he reached for that jar, she couldn't recognize him."After breakfast, he'll go for a walk, and she'll go to their room and pack a slim brown suitcase. She'll stop on the sidewalk and wonder whether she should say good-bye, whether she should leave a note. But she won't. She'll just get into the taxi and go."He knows as soon as he turns onto their walk that she's gone. But he doesn't turn back. He doesn't regret a single day they spent together, including this one. Maybe he finds one of her ribbons on the stairs...

Perhaps, like most of us in a foreign country, he was incapable of placing people, selecting a frame for their picture, as he would at home; therefore all Americans had to be judged in a pretty equal light, and on this basis his companions appeared to be tolerable examples of local color and national character.

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.

If you think it's bad now, my friend, wait till we reach a town!' He shook his head and brushed at his tattered, dirty shirtsleeve. 'Do try to remember we're visitors-and not welcome ones-if you should feel moved to reason with anyone.

These outlanders are peculiar, aren’t they?"Longbow smiled faintly. "They seem to think that we’re the peculiar ones. Their lives are very complicated, but we try our best to keep everything simple. I’m not sure exactly why, but that seems to offend them for some reason.

The American Club was for those who preferred to have dinner at six and brunch on a Sunday and avoid the stress of dealing with Greeks and their language.

Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.

Dating in England is different. First of all because English people don’t like at all other people knowing them, and second, because English people are romantically impaired.

If men were equal in America, all these Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves.

Of course no one accused the old woman of being a witch. But she was foreign. Her words percolated up the tunnel of her throat , espresso-thick and strong. Bad weather had eroded her face. Some believed that the sun had crisped her skin into coriaceous pleats. Others blamed the chaw of a wintry climate. No one knew where she came from, though lots of people privately thought that perhaps she ought to go back.

I have always thought foreigners with their unusual skin colours, mad languages and ignorant customs absolutely hilarious, and I think it's a shame that in recent years its become unfashionable to poke fun at them. I certainly don't think they themselves ever minded it.