Not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.

Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.

The sun is still there... even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again.

She long ago accepted the fact that happiness is like, swallows in spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it.

All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.

In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.

The child in us is always there, you know, and it's the best part of us, the winged part that travels farthest.

Happy the man who lives long enough to acknowledge his ignorance

He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out.

Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.

[Salvation] is a curious process of divine burglary. The first thing to be wrested from one by a God who said 'Thou shalt not steal' is one's good opinion of one's self.

Scare you?" he asked from where he walked beside her."No." Yes. Like he didn't know. "I hate that silent speed thing. Worst vampire ability ever.

Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.

China has great potentials; the people are hard-working and focused. But they have to close the gap as far as the pace of the game is concerned. Football in the future will get faster and faster.

To do anything to a high level it has to be total obsession.

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings.

My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn.

I'm a Frisbeetarian. We worship frisbees. We believe when you die your soul goes up on the roof and you can't get it down.

It is a fight from start to finish to be happy in God.

It takes vision and courage to create

Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man, imprisonedin mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events.