Just as we bemoan the passing away of the Great Novel, a great novelist is likely to emerge, perhaps even from Denmark or Switzerland, to prove us wrong.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

Imagine how much you could have saved if you didn't spend a lot of your money on those unnecessary things with the intention of getting attention or feeling "important" in the eyes of others.

There's never a better way of living than just improving our quality of life.

True friends are a single soul divided between different bodies.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidest and most pernicious illusion.

Money doesn't change who you are; it magnifies who you really are.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Clothing should be like food. There should never be a $5000 sweater. You know what should cost $5000? A car.

To worship a crocodile is better to worship yourself.

Our Catholic schools exist to help young people attain holiness in their lives, that is, to become saints.

It would be far better to be of no church than to be bitter of any.