I will rejoice the day when they say: This is right whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding.

You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

You've only just discovered you have a heart. Let it beat a little.

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

Whatever a man imagines he can attain, if he doesn't become too arrogant and encroach on the rights of the gods.

I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live.

The extreme possibilities are the most illuminating.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.

Nothing lasts forever - except forever. That's the good news. It's a good thing that nothing lasts forever because things would get terribly boring.

A lot of people can play the piano, but not everyone can be Billy Joel.

There are many animal-welfare groups that sometimes seem to forget that human beings are animals too, that we need to include them in our sphere of compassion.

Do you feel like he ignores you?" "No. I feel like he doesn't see me.