Why is humanity so excessive in the way it does things? The golden mean seems out of fashion.

It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.

Life, for all its agonies...is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing...and whatever is to come after it -- we shall not have this life again.

So they left the subject and played croquet, which is a very good game for people who are annoyed with one another, giving many opportunities for venting rancor.

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

Once you get to know your neighbors, you are no longer free, you are all tangled up, you have to stop and speak when you are out and you never feel safe when you are in.

The great and recurrent question about Abroad is, is it worth the trouble of getting there?

Human passions against eternal laws -- that is the everlasting conflict.

To lunch with the important ... that should be the daily goal of those for whom life is not a playground but a ladder.

The impulse to ask questions is among the more primitive human lusts.

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

What is allowed us is disagreeable, what is denied us causes intense desire.

I've always been able to transform happiness and pain and sorrow and tears into positive energy.

Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day.

What has stayed true in my life as a writer is my dedication to writing - I try to write every day, no matter what - and the joy that writing has given me.

I figured out if I have a good goal in mind, then I can actually achieve it.

The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill.

It's taken folk a while to come around, hasn't it? Even the boys in the band weren't too sure about the whole art thing. They just wanted me to concentrate on the music. But they respect it now.

If you have faith, you can do what others can't do, because you can see what others can't see.

Mexico doesn't deserve what has happened to us. A democratic change is urgent, a change that will permit us to stop being a loser country.