When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the unscrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better.

There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot he gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect

In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins.

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.

The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.

Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering

A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse.

Suicides pay the world a bad compliment. Indeed, it may so happen that the world has been beforehand with them in incivility. Granted. Even then the retaliation is at their own expense.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

The dead leave their shadows, an echo of the space within which once they lived. They haunt us, never fading or growing older as we do. The loss we grieve is not just their futures but our own.

The critic has to educate the public

For a moment his eyes locked onto me with an intensity that left me breathless.

Nothing happens. And by that I mean nothing.

What if this is a horrible mistake?" I croaked. "Oh, it'll be horrible fine, just a bunch of pretentious rich people with shelves of expensive books they've never read.

I have been blessed with working with the best in the business.

Once in a while I catch myself wondering whether I would have found the courage to write if I had not started to write when I was too young to know what was good for me.

If I'm going to appear in front of people I like to look my best.

It is possible to create an epidemic of health which is self-organizing and self-propelling.

Today... maybe I can take one step on that profoundly complex path to peace.