The mind […] ascribes characters to things. It can become attached in the process, the attachment taking such forms as erroneous thoughts and clingings, and the Buddha-nature thereby becomes defiled in the way that the sun may be obscured by clouds or a mirror by dust.

That was not the proudest thing I did but I can’t deny it.

‘Vanilla slice,’ he said, his voice directed at the glass cabinet. […] I pulled back the tray with the vanilla slices and he ducked down like a meerkat on sentry duty.

They do eat up one's time — she checks herself again, checks her lapdog's struggles against lapdoggery, and interviewers, and dubious, childless relationships […]