After having admired the women of Rome, say to yourself, 'I too am beautiful!'. . . In you I met a real person. I need not give you any other praise.
Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.
By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer's greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry.
The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.
And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.
Be kind to me, or treat me mean I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine
Age is a hell of a price to pay for wisdom.
Why don't men. . . leave off those detestable stiff collars, stocks, and things, that make them all look like choked chickens, and which hide so many handsomely-turned throats, that a body never sees, unless a body is married, or unless a body happens to see a body's brothers while they are shaving.
I well knew the rules to follow with our training Dogs: Speak when you're spoken to. Keep out of the way. Obey all orders. Get killed on your own time.