DAGUERREOTYPE Will take the place of painting. (See PHOTOGRAPHY.) (From The Dictionary of Received Ideas, assembled from notes Flaubert made in the 1870s.)

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

I know ..you know .. Together, we know nothing.

I think my mission is to be in business so I can create a positive impact that will uplift the others around me. (p. 78)

While he wanted to teach me what he knew, I wanted him to see what it all looked like for me—perhaps love is a process of finding a common vision of reality.

A new novel awaits my arrival, prepares for my careful inspection. Yet a novel is always a long dream that lives in me for years before I know where to go to hunt it out.

Remorse shows the difference between a cruel person and one that is not.

I think we brought to the world, the United States anyway, the whole idea of boycotting as a nonviolent tactic. I think we showed the world that nonviolence can work to make social change.

When I write I like to just say everything that people think about but never express vocally. I just get deep into it; I'm a bit obsessive about music.

Christianity takes this beating that I really don't understand and yet you can't say anything negative about the Muslims because that's horrible, you can't say anything negative about other faiths.

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.