“Silence guides the mind...”

“Silence guides the mind...”

“I am no scientist. I explore the neighbourhood. An infant who has just learned to hold his head up has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn't the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. In a couple of years, what he will have learned instead is how to fake it: he'll have the cocksure air of a squatter who has come to feel he owns the place. Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighbourhood, view the landscape, to discover at least WHERE it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can't learn why.”

“Wealth without real worthinessIs no good for the neighbourhood”

“Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”

“A clear cold morning with high wind: we caught in a trap a large gray wolf, and last night obtained in the same way a fox who had for some time infested the neighbourhood of the fort.”

“The promised notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors -and if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.”

“DeLois lived up the block on 142nd Street and never had her hair done, and all the neighbourhood women sucked their teeth as she walked by. Her crispy hair twinkled in the summer sun as her big proud stomach moved her on down the block while I watched, not caring whether or not she was a poem.”

“The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being played out, and to tell you the truth, it all surprised me. I was so used to things just going on, oblivious and ignorant to all feeling.”

“Like many white liberals, Ken sees the “whiteness” of his social life as more an accident of circumstance than a choice. He would welcome greater diversity in the neighbourhood. However, he does not consciously do enough work either in his social life or in the larger community to make that diversity possible.”

“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair.Even when all doors remain closed, God wil open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied.”