Archives - October 2002

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Come to the edge he said; We are afraid they said. Come to the edge he said; They came. He pushed them; and they flew.

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.

My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.

After another moment's silence, she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might disgust her for the very same reason.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

This is the true measure of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: "His sins were scarlet, but his books were read."

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.

Humor is a rubber sword it allows you to make a point without drawing blood.

Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision.  But today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.  Look well, therefore to this day.

I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.  Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

Man is the only animal that blushes or needs to.

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.