Archives - August 2005

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

A strong egoism is a protection against disease, but in the last resort we must begin to love in order that we may not fall ill, and must fall ill if, in consequence of frustration, we cannot love.

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me --- shapes and ideas so near to me --- so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

A cynic is just a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.

Where love rules, there is no will to power and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes.

There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere...

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

Never judge a work of art by its defects.