it was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion

You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you have nothing else

I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn to stop making them.

It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.

Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.

You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.

Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit.

If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.

I've made peace with myself. Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win. Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

... the love which Kahu received from Koro Apirana was the sort that dropped off the edge of the table, like breadcrumbs after everybody else has had a big meal.

He was stabbed by memory, that tyrant which impinges upon our dreams and leaps at out throat as soon as we awaken.

What is your personal definition of "good"? A world in which everyone is universally empathetic and exercises love and respect with full change-making power.

If it is dangerous to suppose that government is always right, it will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people suppose that it is always wrong.

Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties.

Failure-it centers me. Too much success has me thinking, All right, what's goin' on?

Yes, but I think the big thing for everyone is to wear what they want and what suits them.

When I am completely united to You, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of You, my life will be complete.

I enjoy listening to opera at home, occasionally, but I would much rather see it than just listen to it.

Tranqility is a certain quality of mind, which no condition or fortune can either exalt or depress.