Life is but sighs; and, when they cease, 'tis over.

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

I hoped I wasn't blushing. It was bad enough I had to depend on my mom to drive me to my battles.

Sports movies are often very good at dramatizing the intersection of public and private realms: the body politic.

Did you see where President Reagan finally got a hearing aid? People have been telling him to get one for years, but he couldn't hear them.

Whatever you do, make sure you want to write more than you want to be a writer. Make sure you want to act more than you want to be an actor. That is what will sustain you.

I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.

Theology is reflection, a critical attitude. The commitment of love, of service, comes first. Theology follows; it is the second step.

If you have an open, loving, positive attitude, anything burdensome in life can be lightened!

Women all want to be ladies, which is simply to have nothing to do, but listlessly to go they scarcely care where, for they cannot tell what.

Eight months later, having left Columbia, I was studying physics in a summer program and working in Colorado when I decided to enroll as a graduate student in biophysics.