“But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows?”

“I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the best you can you can't do any better. So when I go to sleep ...”

“The President spends most of his time kissing people on the cheek in order to get them to do what they ought to do without getting kissed.”

“'Sartor Resartus' is simply unreadable and for me that always sort of spoils a book.”

“How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?”

“Once a decision was made I did not worry about it afterward.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to...”

“[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124)”

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. ...”