The more I see of life the more I perceive that only through solitary communion with nature can one gain an idea of its richness and meaning.

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

The romance of travel wasn't always terribly evident to those who were actually experiencing it.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

I see philosophy as a fairly abstract activity, as concerned mainly with the analysis of criticism and concepts, and of course most usefully of scientific concepts.

I've been known to make out with girls from time to time. Couple drinks involved, you know, it's fun. And who knows, maybe it'll go further someday.

People find gold in fields, veins, river beds, and pockets. Whichever, it takes work to get it out.

There's always a faster gun.

Just as a picture is drawn by an artist, surroundings are created by the activities of the mind

We've been running a little behind schedule. But only by about 15 years or so.

The greatest single challenge facing our globalised world is to combat and eradicate its disparities.

First thing I do when I get up is journal, meditate, read.