He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Friendship often ends in love. But love in friendship never.

Thought before word, never word before thought.

Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts. What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have.

Graciously live life.

The magic fades too fastthe scent of summer never lasts the nights turn hollow and vast but nothing remains...nothing lasts.

Photobomb me at your own risk!

Marah will come looking for me one day, Kate had said, pressing the journal into my hands. Be with her when she reads it. And my boys… show them these words when they can’t remember me.

...in the habit of watching every bit of human life I can see about my windows, but I do it so that I am not observed at it.

All comedy comes from a dark place.

It seems that the brain has a "small world" architecture - or at least the cortex does. Everything can connect to everything else in a few synaptic steps.