Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

With a single leap, you can change your entire life.

Surrendering to Christ is like signing your name to a blank check and letting the Lord put in the amount.

…there is faith and faith. One form of faith is actual practice—the rituals and so on—the other form of faith involves actually believing in it.

With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings

Homework, root canals, and deadlines are the important things in life, and only when we have these major dramas taken care of can we presume to look at the larger questions.

The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability.

If you can't,can't be yourself what are you living for? If you can't, can't be yourself you're gonna lose it all

Maybe down the road, I can see myself being part of the creative process, but acting is definitely my first and true love.

I time everything. I'm a scientist at heart.

Aid is the process by which the poor in rich countries subsidize the rich in poor countries.