"We had found a country where people treated one another well, with respect, and where there were values other than grab, grab, grab, which prevails back home. I felt humbled, in a way. Everything about my own country seemed so shoddy and superficial when held up against what I saw in Africa."

"People suffered here, and many of them had very little, but they had this wonderful feeling for others. When I first heard African people calling others - complete strangers - their brother or their sister, it sounded odd to my ears. But after a while I knew exactly what it meant and I started to think the same way.... I wish I could have called my friends 'my sisters' but it would have sounded contrived. But that is how I felt. I was learning lessons. I had come to Africa and I was learning lessons."

Alexander McCall Smith, Tears of the Giraffe

“Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry . . . have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere—let me be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn