The halcyon days of childhood, a time when everything lay open before him, when the most minor episodes could be construed as events and every chance encounter … gave rise to fresh insights.

I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying.

The world is like an enormous set of scales. When evil begins to outweigh good, angels cram themselves in on the lighter side. You can't see them, but there they are, restoring the balance.

...there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love.

If we lose our memory, we lose ourselves. Forgetting is one of the symptoms of death. Without memory we cease to be human beings.

To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead?

Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.

Man is afraid to attain what he longs for, just as subconsciously he longs for what he is afraid of.

A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

Animals have one thing that puts them way ahead of people: they don't dissemble, and you don't have to pretend in front of them.

The pain of running relieves the pain of living.

DeeDee had to have a firm grasp on reality. Yet she knew God was bigger than a pathology report. So she prayed.

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.

Suffering over things that have happened to us is nothing more than an argument with the past.

But what I miss the most is knowing just exactly where it hurts, knowing just exactly what is wrong and what I want.

I think the last thing I want to do is switch doctors.

There is superstition in avoiding superstition.

Today is February 14th - St. Valentine's day. Women call it Love day, while men name it as Extortion day.

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

Every person has their own unique circumstances to overcome, but every single person has the opportunity to achieve anything - and change everything.