I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

Conventionality is not morality.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.

If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

It is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.

It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.

And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.

The mind and the breath are the king and queen of human consciousness".

Perfection is the enemy of authenticity.

What plagues people is not those who don't love them, but those who do.

I am not a televangelist.

We are living in an era of such interesting new forms, and certainly narrative non-fiction has emerged as a major form. People who are great writers don't have to write novels anymore.

Somehow we must be able to show people that democracy is not about words, but action.

I have inner peace. It's a different person.

David Sedaris wrote in one of his books that people like to make children into little grown-ups, which to him is about as funny as a dog in sunglasses.

The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.