Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.
. . . the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.
I had build up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth.
Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.
Sometimes it’s a sort of indulgence to think the worst of ourselves. We say, ‘Now I have reached the bottom of the pit, now I can fall no further,’ and it is almost a pleasure to wallow in the darkness. The trouble is, it’s not true. There is no end to the evil in ourselves, just as there is no end to the good. It’s a matter of choice. We struggle to climb, or we struggle to fall. The thing is to discover which way we’re going.
He was like someone sleeping who woke suddenly and found the world. . . all the beauty of it, and the sadness too. The hunger and the thirst. Everything he had never thought about or known was there before him, and magnified into one person who by chance, or fate--call it what you will--happened to be me.
The urge to climb will never be explained. In olden days, perhaps it was a wish to reach the stars. Today, anyone so minded can buy a seat on a plane and feel himself master of the skies. Even so, he will not have rock under his feet, or air upon his face; nor will he know the silence that comes only on the hills.
Theatres are built because they were the boards for entertainment.
It might be a kind of relief to be finished. You have to start all over again. But I believe you’re always as good as your potential. I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and, so long, I’ve had you fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.
Interesting to me, at least, is that often you meet certain king of people and you feel, in their company, extremely warm and hopeful that they care about you, but you also think that they probably have 10 other people they put their attention to. You think, "Wow, this person is making me feel so special and like they really love me. " But the savvy part of me thinks, "They probably do that to everybody. "
As soon as you seek to inspire others, it inspires the best in you.