Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

I couldn't be a director because I couldn't put up with the actors. I don't have the patience. Why, I'd probably kill the actors. Not to mention some of the beautiful actresses.

I like to be surrounded by harmonies and fullness and richness and vitality

You can't find the sound if you just love sleep.

The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else -- men, guns, ammunition.

The biggest secret of focused people is that they don't think about focus.

The local church is the outcrop of the church universal.

A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

Being able to depend on someone doesn't mean you're dependent on them.

We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.