“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much ...”

“Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.”

“Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.”

“To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”

“Justice is the only worship.Love is the only priest.Ignorance is the only slavery.Happiness is the only good.The time to be happy is now,The place to be happy is here,The way to be happy is to make...”

“Be a good human.”

“Our country in general assumes that "the pursuit of happiness" really means "the pursuit of pleasure" and that therefore pleasure is the greatest good.”

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

“A word is not the same with one writer as it is with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake....”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”