Eventually we come to know and understand a lot of things, but it's too late, because a whole life has already been determined at a stage when we didn't know a thing.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.

She admired her passion, knowing that passion is by definition excessive.

If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred?

Everyone is wrong about the future.

If I were a doctor, I would diagnose his condition thus: "The patient is suffering from nostalgic insufficiency.

an old villa surrounded by a garden looked to them like the image of a comforting home, the dream of an idyll long past.

It was the incommunicable scent of this country, its intangible essence, that she had brought along with her to France.

To Be Trained Is To Be Strengthened

'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' is one of the most famous books of all Japanese literature, written by the great poet Basho in 1689.

I have to say I like Obama a lot. His record is the best. He's always been vocal about his opposition to the war in Iraq. Frankly, he seems very good in a lot of ways.

All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds is only to destroy.

I've always wanted to figure out how to do a walking story. I'd never figured out how to do one and have it work or be interesting or have anything that it's about.

Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.

I was found on Youtube. I think I was detrimental to my own career.

I separate cartooning, which is fun and wacky and soulful, from illustration, which is very well-drawn and extremely uptight to look at. There's a difference. I'm a cartoonist.

I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published.

If you would have a good wife, marry one who has been a good daughter.