The past is a palimpsest. Early memories are always obscured by accumulations of later knowledge.

Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face.

I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.

Half the world's work is done by hopeless neurotics.

Literature that awakens and inflames feelings is the food of hearts.

Struggle forms character. No struggle, no character.

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.

It is the doom of the Christian church to be always distracted with controversy. John Quincy Adams

Don't spend your time fetching water with a basket for it will never get filled up

It doesn't matter what country or what political system you are from. Space brings you together.

I do fear death. But what I actually fear is not dying. I mean, true, it will be sad. But I know that there is a better place waiting for me.

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

A Scorpio, it's just about peeling back the layers. And I'm always surprised at myself-there's a lot under there.