An altruist is one who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.
Sister Simplicitie! Sing, sing a song to me,-- Sing me to sleep! Some legend low and long, Slow as the summer song Of the dull Deep.
He who, being bold For life to come, is false to the past sweet Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. For why to live again if not to meet? And why to meet if not to meet in love? And why in love if not in that dear love of old?
Stern duties need not speak sternly. He who stood firm before the thunder worshipped the still small voice.
The secret of pleasure in life, as distinct from its great triumphs of transcendent joy, is to live in a series of small, legitimate successes. By legitimate I mean such as are not accompanied by self-condemnation.
Unsuccessful emulation is too apt to sink into envy, which of all sins has not even the excuse to offer of temporary gratification.
It often requires more strength and judgment to resist than to embrace an opportunity. It is better to do nothing than to do other than well.
The difference between Oprah Winfrey and me is about $200 million.
I think, then, there's the sort of, like, political dimension to lyrics. One of the problems that I've had with my output as a lyric writer is that I look back at it and there's some turn-of-phrases and some images and some kind of montage-y kinds of things I'm really proud of. But it kind of bums me out that people have told me again and again that they don't really understand what I'm trying to say.
The world of maps is nice and flat and simple. It has areas for people and areas for monsters. What a shock it is to discover the world is round and the areas merge and nothing separates the monsters and ourselves; that we are all whirling around in space together and there isn't even a graceful way of falling off.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.