Archives - May 2008

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all --- night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.

I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a light in the midst of darkness...

In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever in and of itself.

After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

I am not a quitter. I will fight until I drop. It is just a matter of having some faith in the fact that as long as you are able to draw breath in the universe, you have a chance.

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too --- even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.

When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.

My mother gave me a bumblebee pin when I started work. She said: "Aerodynamically, bees shouldn't be able to fly. But they do. Remember that."

I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist.

There's always something to suggest that you'll never be who you wanted to be. Your choice is to take it or keep on moving.

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

Age is always advancing and I'm fairly sure it's up to no good.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Books worth reading once are worth reading twice; and what is most important of all, the masterpieces of literature are worth reading a thousand times.

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.

History never repeats itself, as most people fear. People usually repeat history.

When we are flat on our backs there is no way to look but up.

We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart.

It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.

We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.

Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.

You see things and you say "Why?"; but I dream things that never were and I say "Why not?"

We ought never to do wrong when people are looking.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.