The glossy surface of our civilization hides a real intellectual decadence.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.

An educator should consider that he has failed in his job if he has not succeeded in instilling some trace of a divine dissatisfaction with our miserable social environment.

One learns by doing the thing for though you think you know it you have no certainty until you try.

Philosophy is the thoughts of men about human thinking, reasoning and imagining, and the real values in human existence.

I didn't quit drinking because I was a bad drunk. I quit because I was a spectacular drunk. It got to be like a video game, where you get to the highest level and it's not even a challenge any more.

Love is selflessness and self-fullness; it can only be known deeply with an open, vulnerable heart.

It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down to your hips. Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

Seeing movie people trying to get into TV now who don't understand that is very interesting.

I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are (p. 331).

I cannot bear that you / Should think me faithful, when I am untrue.