When you are lonely, writing can keep you company. It is also a form of self-compensation, a way of making up for things—as opposed to making things up—that did not quite happen.

Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

The ideal is to feel at home anywhere, everywhere.

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

To be interested in something is to be involved in what is essentially a stressful relationship with that thing, to suffer anxiety on its behalf.

All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

Quite often, ambition operates on a level of irritation. Not even jealousy, just irritation.

If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff

I guess that as life is speeded up and our capacity for concentration is being nibbled away at by all the obvious things, that leads us actually to be more susceptible to boredom.

Deep down in my heart, I know that I know nothing.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

This day's nothingness as if from spite became a flame and scorched the lips of children and poets.

In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.

Don't let uncertainty talk you into pursuing a backup plan instead of your purpose.

And I'm the biggest country fan there is, but I'm always a little cautious of a slower song or just a song with subject matter.

Nothing can be more true, than that the greatest Boasters have the least of what they pretend to.

G.D.P. is not a measure of how much value is produced for consumers. Everybody should recognize that G.D.P. is not a welfare metric.

Communism is a form of society where the less people have to eat, the more they have to swallow.

Let every Christian, as much as in him lies, engage himself openly and publicly, before all the World, in some mental pursuit for the Building up of Jerusalem.