It is never persuasive to argue that you are not the kind of person who does what you are actually doing.

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.

Should we not invariably act in this life as though the God whom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our every action?

I know not which lives more unnatural lives, obeying husbands, or commanding wives.

Respect, reverence, self-esteemAre my basic requisites I refuse to be a competitorWho struggles for personal rights

As an early child, I tried to play every kind of music that I heard. I thought everyone was doing that.

[O]ne could translate the 555 pages of The Social System into about 150 pages of straightforward English. The result would not be very impressive.

I can tell you that today 99% of my investments are in Brazil and will remain here.

...if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all.

I have great confidence in Rick Caruso's unique qualifications and his ability to lead a successful bid for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I believe in UFOs, I believe in extraterrestrials, and I believe in angels. And maybe they'll protect all of us.

And so it's inescapable and people who proclaim scrupulous honesty can only proclaim that if they don't examine closely the things they believe.