The magnificently humble. The enormously small. The meaningfully ridiculous. Robert Walser's work often reads like a dazzling answer to the question, How immense can modesty be?

I've always thought of my own mind as an unruly parliament, with a feeble leader, with crazy extremist factions.

Physics advances by accepting absurdities. Its history is one of unbelievable ideas proving to be true.

But one day I woke up and heard myself saying, I am a fork being used to eat cereal. I am not a spoon. I am a fork. And I can’t help people eat cereal any longer.

Then the nurse did turn to glance, and then stare—actually stare—at me. His look made me feel as if I was green, or whistling, or dead.

It's true what they say, that a baby gives you a reason to live. But also, a baby is a reason that it is not permissible to die. There are days when this does not feel good.

He is my unicorn, though... That's how I felt falling in love with him, as if I'd found a creature of myth.

When you focus and accept the current moment with love, faith, and joyfulness, you are practicing mindfulness. That is better than controlling the universe.

In the United States, there was no simpler, more agreeable time.

There are so many shoot-'em-up, action, jingoistic TV shows and movies that are made every year. I think the final line is that Hollywood is populist.

Of all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to except for the society of the true seekers, which has very few living members at any one time.

Oh it's a pebble... But it's a really nice pebble Dad thanks.

If we try to secure the well-being of others, we will, at the same time, create the conditions for our own.

I'm very antischedule. Except for board meetings, I don't really schedule things or keep a calendar. I think appointments are caustic to creativity.

You will find out that in the measure you have allowed yourself to look back you have missed that which God has for you.

I think that support of this [stem cell] research is a pro-life pro-family position. This research holds out hope for more than 100 million Americans.

I have short hands. That's why I have to bend up to notes; I can't always reach the frets.