It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

Do all the good you can and make as little fuss about it as possible.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

The funniest people are the saddest ones

Fear of making mistakes can itself become a huge mistake, one that prevents you from living, for life is risky and anything less is already loss.

Suffering is above, not below. And everyone thinks that suffering is below. And everyone wants to rise.

The East Coast, and certainly Boston, has a provincial quality to it that makes it harder to bust out and move up. Try to be too different and they'll pull you down.

My readership seems to be the sensitive people, for the most part. Then there are the occasional fans who are like, "Ah, video games!"

Until as recently as November of 1966, I had complete faith in the Warren Report. Of course, my faith in the Report was grounded in ignorance, since I had never read it.

In health we're doing the digestive system. We each got assigned a topic for an oral report. I got the small intestine. I swear to god I hate my life.

Before children, even the most cynical people throw down their usual masks and become capable of feeling the purity and love which all human beings seek.

Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important or significant writer - but the two things together make a really good writer.

All kids, when they go to school, are pretty good artists and dancers and singers and poets. All that gets buried, basically through being educated, or brainwashed.