If I, this mortal shell, am going to die, let me at least live on through my creations.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

God is the Everlasting Counselor.

Makhluk kecil kembalilah. Dari tiada ke tiada. Berbahagialah dalam ketiadaanmu.

Image is only temporal. Substance endures. Who said, "Image is everything"? And who believed it?

People like my grandmother, who have no home but in memory, learn to be very skilled in the art of recollection.

• Plan in decades• Think in years• Work in months• Count in days• Live in the moment

There's something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."

We expressed love for this dog by ... knowing without showing that we cared for him.

Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.

I do not look back at what might have been. If I did that, playing golf would drive me crazy.