Cupid in these latter times has probably laid aside his bow and arrow, and uses fire-arms -- a pistol -- perhaps a revolver.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release.

No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

Moonlight is sculpture.

We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence.

For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force.

Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that holds no tenderness, no quietude, I long suddenly for peace, for understanding.

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

My basic rule is, if it could possibly come from the end user, it's not a run-time crash. But if it is my code to my code, I crash it as hard as possible—fail as early as possible.

The corsets I wore in The Railway Children are still in my undies drawer, a prized relic of my favourite film

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.

Identify your personal limits and then push past them. Then set new barriers, and repeat the process, again and again and again.

A dispassionate white sun shone at the summit of the sky. I wanted to hone myself on it till I grew saintly and thin and essential as the blade of a knife.