The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind. When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.

In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.

My head was a magpie's nest lined with such bright scraps of information.

Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.

Life would be grand if it weren't for the people.

Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind.

When you are like the tree, there is oneness with the Earth, Sun and Moon, but still steadfast in your purpose.

The greatest challenge of parenting is in the inner work it requires: the strength and confidence in believing that we are not in control of, but the answer for our children.

Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

A good man will certainly also possess courage; but a brave man is not necessarily good.

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.

Bette Davis had a phrase that called it "cigarette smoking acting" .

You can divide my life into two.

Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind.

Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go to its own depths and listen.