Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing.

You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

One of the things that kills Buddhist spiritual life is excessive seriousness.

Some of the greatest masterpieces of art are created against the odds of reality.from the book: stuff i think about

Apathetic people sit back and wait for things to get better before they move. Radical people make things get better, by how they move.

Anger is action without thoughts.

The commencement of true happiness is the realization that your happiness begins with you.

If you are good to this one and that one, this one and that one will say that you are good. If you are good to everyone, no one will say that you are good.

Sentimentalism is the working off on yourself of feelings you haven't really got.

A philosopher is a person who doesn't care which side his bread is buttered on; he knows he eats both sides anyway.

Beauty when most unclothed is clothed best.

Hast thou attempted greatnesse? Then go on; Back-turning slackens resolution.