In twenty-one years, I have not considered changing to Todd. The bizarre course of my life suggests that Odd is more suited to me, whether it was conferred by my parents with intention or fate.

Money and beauty are defenses against the sorrows of this world but neither can undo the past. Only time will conquer time. The way forward is the only way back to innocence and to peace.

His resiliency was not the resiliency of the dumb but of a lamb who can remember hurt but cannot sustain the anger or the bitterness that brittles the heart.

And because we have been given thought, will, and imagination, albeit on a human scale, we too have this power to create.

Then perhaps you shouldn't sleep. The imagination has terrifying power.

It's a world of sorrow, Oddie, because we make it so.

Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it.

Life had been hard on this girl, Jacob, but she had enough courage for an army.

Human beings not only can't bear too much reality, we flee from reality when someone doesn't force us close enough to the fire to feel the heat on our faces.

When you laugh at yourself, you gain perspective. Then you realize that the mistakes you made, as long as they didn't hurt anyone but yourself——well, you can forgive yourself for those.

My imagination is as rich as my bank account is empty.

Words are confessions of your actions. Choose them wisely.

Science's domain is the natural. If you want to understand the natural world and be sure you're not misleading yourself, science is the way to do it.

My work is about helping humanity.

Just do whatever you want to in life. One day tomorrow won't be there.

The masses are still ungrateful or ignorant. They prefer murder, poisonings, and crimes generally to a literature possessed of style and feeling.

Dear, if you are dead or alive, I will still love you no matter what.

There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.

If you want to shoot rare, fast-moving elephants, you should always carry a loaded gun.