Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.

If man were never to fade away ... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.

On a moonlit night, after a snowfall, or under cherry blossoms, it adds to our pleasure if, while chatting at our ease, we bring forth the wine cups.

... For such as truly love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of one night.

Life's most precious gift is uncertainty.

Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch.

In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth

The truth is at the beginning of anything and its end are alike touching.

Ambition never comes to an end.

You should never put the new antlers of a deer to your nose and smell them. They have little insects that crawl into the nose and devour the brain.

In the times of trouble, be like the strong wall. In the times of joy, be like the smiling sun.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

We help other people because we can, or because it makes us feel good, not because we're counting on some future payback. There is a word for this; love.

You would never dream of going on to play a scene in front of an audience at least without having rehearsed it. But you do somehow in front of a camera.

Left to our own devices and passions, we human beings have a hard time seeing beyond what is immediately in front of us.

A ton of Proust isn’t worth an ounce of Ray Bradbury.

Students present themselves...like a succession of CDs whose shimmering surface gives no clue to their contents without the equipment to play them.

And Louis Freeh was a completely dysfunctional FBI Director, who was actually waging his own private war against the Clinton Administration.

All you can do is make something that you like and feel proud of and then just hope for the best and try to get out of its way.

... Do not let the deeds and thoughts of other people confuse you; let them not prompt you to do or say anything evil!