Men are too unstable to be just; they are crabbed because they have not passed water at the usual time, or testy because they have not been stroked or praised.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

No business can be made easier to do than excuses are to make.

We lose ourselves in things we love. We find ourselves there, too.

Everything I am seems to be inside my awareness, rather than my awareness being inside of me.

It's quite enough to have a secret. Anything more would be greedy.

Having patience is one of the hardest things about being human. We want to do it now, and we don't want to wait. Sometimes we miss out on our blessing when we rush things and do it on our own time.

In the future, I want to be consistent from Day 1. We're still making adjustments. I still believe that I can be better.

I am the ocean we lived on for two months. I am empty. I am nothing.

I got as little as a $75 a week when I started.

When God has once begun to throw down the prosperous, He overthrows them altogether: such is the end of the mighty.

This haunting idea of becoming a celebrity doesn't settle well with me at all.