And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

The sunset glow of self-possession.

There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.

The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.

Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.

Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.

Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn.

Hate wields no sustainable power

If you can deceive the Devil, you can no longer call yourself as human!

Let it be immediately added, however, that this economic independence and prosperity has always been absolutely associated in the American mind with free political institutions.

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call.

... the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind.

Iran poses the most serious long-term threat to regional stability.

I'm conducting slowly because I don't know the tempo.

Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks.

I think that even if you're wondering if two characters are ever going to kiss, drawing out the inevitability is part of the fun. Whatever the genre happens to be.

A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the work of Ha Jin in its power and revelation of the new.