On a small table beside his chair were other haphazardly stacked volumes by such poets as Emerson, Whitman, and Wallace Stevens, a dangerous crew to let into your head.

Do not doubt the beauty of your heart.

Knowing the names of things is a way to pay respect to the beauty of the world...

...the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know.

We make so many of our own troubles, from mere mishaps to disasters, by dwelling on the possibility of them until the possible becomes inevitable.

All death matters.""Only to the living.

The dead can be even more frustrating to deal with than are many of the living, which is astonishing when you consider it's the living who run the Department of Motor Vehicles.

I never plan for the future but wander into it with a smile on my face, hope in my heart, and the hair up on the nape of my neck.

If there's nothing to learn because we know it all, what's the challenge? Why would the effort matter? What would be the point? - Odd Thomas

Virtue is imaginative, evil repetitive.

In memory, she lived and moved and laughed, but all that a photograph could offer was one frozen moment of a life.

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.

Not that easy to have tears in your heart but a smile on your lips.

Some guy once told me that skydiving is like cutting your throat and seeing if you can get to the doctor before you bleed to death.

I ain't askin' nobody for nuttin' if I cain't get it on my own.

Age is a hell of a price to pay for wisdom.

There are no immovable barriers to education.

You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are...so proud of you.

The mobile industry changed Africa.

I mean, I like nice girls, and I like people who are generous.

Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.