I was suffering from the delusion that it's the thought that counts.

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

My own apathy is bone chilling.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

Reading time is precious. Don't waste it. Reading bad books, or books that are wrong for a certain time in your life, can dangerously turn you off the activity altogether.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

We tend to overlook goodness, but we must put goodness front and center in our lives.

Pretending is one of our greatest pleasures. But you have to know you're pretending.

Many are called, few are chosen.

All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others

Don't find the fault, find the remedy

If man looks within himself he must perceive two things: a law of right, and that which it condemns.

Sometimes in this life, under the stress of an exceptional emotion, people do say what they think.

A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A secret, because he is separated from it.

Brothers, what we do in life........echoes in eternity.

The Shariah has many other functions but also protects the tarqiah; it protects the spiritual path.