A little statriotism. When I visited my friend in Khakassia, someone told us that it's crucial for people to believe that where they live is the center of the universe. He said it's when you start thinking the center is somewhere else that your culture stops developing.

I have some money now, so I'm going to buy film today.

"To those devoid of imagination, a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part. (Is my share in Alaska worthless to me because I shall never go there? Do I need a road to show me the arctic prairies, the goose pasture of the Yukon, the Kodiak bear, the sheep meadows behind McKinley?)"

From Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac, page 176.

"'The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen.'

I replied, "Yes, that is so." And, without saying anything more, I looked across the ridges of sand that were stretched out before us in the moonlight.

'The desert is beautiful,' the little prince added.

And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...

'What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well...'

I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart...

'Yes,' I said to the little prince. 'The house, the stars, the desert-- what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!'"

From chapter 24 of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.