Risk. The word had a whole new meaning when uttered within the context of these jungles and the people who populated them. For most tribal people, the risk was not so much of dying but of not living properly. It was the quality of your time on earth, not the quantity, that was important. How different that dream from the one I had been taught! Where, I wondered, did we get the idea we must do everything possible to postpone the inevitable? What is it about the words more and longer that has made them assume such a paramount position in our language?
~ from THE WORLD IS AS YOU DREAM IT by John Perkins
Pavarotti retains a kind of religious, mystical, commitment to his "work.” And he insists on referring to it as "work,” claiming: "You can always love your work; your profession, at best, you can exercise.” Few people realize that the joyful tenor, the man who is always smiling, is almost a cloistered monk . . .