Poets and painters are outside the class system, or rather they constitute a special class of their own, like the circus people and the Gypsies.

Middle age snuffs out more talent than even wars or sudden death.

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

Those who have money think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know it is money.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

In a happy marriage it is the wife who provides the climate, the husband the landscape.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited and gives us what we have earned.

The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

Living things are creations, masterpieces. All Life Matters!

Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.

The prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.

Because I was young, I had this long hair, and people used to try to tip me with joints.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake.

So what am I willing to do? Do my work heartily, unto the Lord. There is no higher accountability in life than to do something for God. So that's kind of how I operate.

Canadians want a country. They don't want a community of communities. I'm committed to the national unity of the country.

A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.

What I aim at is an image with a minimum of information and markers, that has no reference to a given time or place.

I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead -- after all, I had been "analyzed." Instead, all I could see were question marks.