If you can attribute your success entirely to your own mental effort, to your own attitude, to some spiritual essence that you have that is better than other peoples, then that must feel pretty good.

Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.

For anyone worn down, The Impossible Will Take a Little While is a bracing double cappuccino.

Considering the absence of legal coercion, the surprising thing is that men have for so long, and, on the whole, so reliably, adhered to what we might call the breadwinner ethic.

Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.

No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on.

Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.

Personally, I can't see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-color catalogue than in the average downtown bar at happy hour.

It is not enough simply to wish that love and compassion grow within us. We need a sustained effort to cultivate such positive qualities.

And then ... perhaps someone will write a book about making a film about a story that is taken from this book which is taken from a real-life story that was copied from a story in a book. You know?

All the motives for murder are covered by four Ls: Love, Lust, Lucre and Loathing.

Explorers have to be ready to die lost.

I never scrimmage Oilers against Oilers...What for? Houston isn't on our schedule.

If you just work on your craft hard, that's your only hope of doing anything worthwhile.

If you work an extra ten hours to help spread the dharma, this will cause for much faster progression. You're doing something for a higher cause, for a higher ideal.

I worked from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. every night for a year to write the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume.

Things fall apart, so they can fall together at a higher level of order.