“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality. When at last age has as...”

“...[T]here are days when emptiness is spacious, and non-existence elevating.”

“I admire a contented mind. I revere enjoyment of the simple things. I can imagine that contentment has a high degree of truth. But the human tendency is to take good as normal, and one's natural ri...”

“I say to life, "You are very hard", and I also say: "We are blind, we prefer to be blind. It is easier...". Life has to be hard to have any affect on us; even now we hardly notice it. Beyond that c...”

“Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.”

“This is what creation is. The might and marvel of forever creating out of opposition.”

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for t...”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying youre friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”