Excessive indulgence to others, especially to children is in fact only self-indulgence under an alias.

Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit.

Seeking is not always the way to find.

The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one.

The cross was two pieces of dead wood; and a helpless, unresisting Man was nailed to it; yet it was mightier than the world, and triumphed, and will ever triumph over it.

Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.

Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.

Few take advice, or physic, without wry faces at it.

A youth's love is the more passionate; virgin love is the more idolatrous.

When will talkers refrain from evil speaking: when listeners refrain from evil-hearing.

People cannot go wrong, if you don't let them. They cannot go right, unless you let them.

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

Dost thou want another eye beside that of Him who sees every secret thing?

The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there, " inside you, waiting to be discovered.

Sailboats are the slowest form of transportation on Earth with the possible exeption of airline flights that go through O'Hare.

You cannot write in more than one language. Words don't come out as well.

[Malipiero's advice to Casanova.] If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a judge.

I never took a lesson until I was 20, and I'm glad I had those years living the life of a normal person. I don't consider that time wasted.

I try to make puzzles range all the way from easy to hard, and to leave many open at once.

Imagination is the first step in creation whether in words or trifles. The mental pattern must always precede the material form.