A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe?

No one dies of nausea, but it can seriously sap the will to live.

And here face down beneath the sunAnd here upon earth's noonward heightTo feel the always coming onThe always rising of the night

When comprehending how different people truly are, you also comprehend the absolute necessity of some divine authority.

When I travel, people say ‘Yet another place in this world’. But I see ‘Another world inside every place I go

We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and truly laid.

They [daisies] are my favorite flower. There is something innocent and vulnerable about them as if they thanked you for admiring them.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change.

It’s not about electing the right people. It’s about a narrowing their responsibilities.

I’m not comfortable with comfort. I’m only comfortable when I’m in a place where I’m constantly learning and growing.

I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. I mark only the happy hours, like the sundial, because otherwise I would have gone nuts.

All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true.