I have the impression that if he didn't complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.

The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman.

To be a woman is a great adventure; To drive men mad is a heroic thing.

Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.

In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.

And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?

It's like we've been living in two different cities. You up here in all this marbled comfort, and me down there, killing myself in slow motion.

There is no greater love than a maker’s for the things she makes. Especially when they grow to be something she never imagined.

No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.

I like to mix up my workouts to keep them fun and interesting. It makes getting to the gym a lot easier!

And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Don't try to cover your mistakes with false words. Rather, correct your mistakes with examination.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

Reintegration with Nature, which we are, is the recovery of spontaneity.