There's something very enticing about an empty bench under a tree. And if it's facing a river, that's the bench for me.

We like to think we're in control but we never are.

How strange it is beholding this, and, very confident, proclaim that such magnificenceoccurred by accident.

Life did come with a manual.

Solitude is the canvas of a thinking mind.

If you can't write, read.If you can't read, walk.Or walk and read, then write.

Solitary walks are great for getting new ideas. It's like you're in a video game and you pick up idea coins on the way.

Those who are acquainted with failure acquire the unique ability to dare without fear of it.

It's only awkward if it matters.

You don't have to live happily ever after with every single person in your life in order to live happily ever after. Some unfortunate endings are necessary.

It reveals how well you value someone - the way you handle their belongings.

Success without happiness and health is not success.

My mom said there's a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there or not. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.

There comes a point, in literary objectivity, when the author's self- effacement is hard to distinguish from moral cowardice.

In the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit, it is easy to say we are showing holiness and it only be egotistic pride and hardness.

Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all became terribly egocentric.

I live my life openly and freely every day anyway, and do what I want to do, but I don't take any great risks.

I don't have a problem with drugs, I have a problem with policemen.

Anything happens in Grand Prix racing, and it usually does.

They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.

He moves smoothly and slowly, carrying his concentration like a brimming cup.