Temperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body. Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, It is a rule, like the Rule of St Benedict.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

If you listen to music every day, you will strengthen your soul.

No act of kindness deserves a debt in return.

Surgery is just stabbing in a courteous environment

Cuisine is only about making foods taste the way they are supposed to taste.

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

If brandy was made out of sparrows there would soon be no sparrows.

The moment when I can see a student's block, name the challenge and watch them become fuller and more dynamic in front of their colleagues' eyes is as rich a moment in a boardroom as it is in a ring.

So there's only one tactic for the state: kill the seers.

Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.

Our everyday lives are filled with complex decisions. We long for simplicity and ordinariness.