I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.
Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.
I never change, I simply become more myself.
Novels usually evolve out of 'character. ' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.
How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.
Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.
Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
One of the most solemn responsibilities of the president and it's set out expressly in the Constitution is that the president is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and that means the Constitution. It means statutes. It means treaties. It means all of the laws of the United States.
I won the argument against the knife that night, but barely. I had some other good ideas around that time--about how jumping off a building or blowing my brains out with a gun might stop the suffering. but something about spending a night with a knife in my hand did it. The next morning I called my friend Susan as the sun came up, begged her to help me. I don't think a woman in the whole history of my family had ever done that before, had ever sat in the middle of the road like that and said, in the middle of her life, "I cannot walk another step further--somebody has to help me.
I went to business school but left after four months because I just didn't want to be a puppet of society, stuck in an office, craving some sunlight.