Youth is not wasted on the young, it is perpetrated on the young.

Not being funny doesn't make you a bad person. Not having a sense of humor does.

Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up.

Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

We’re creatures of contact regardless of whether/ we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.

There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.

Central to living a life that is good, is a life that's forgiving.

I am neither spontaneous nor ready for anything.

I have managed to establish an identity that is based on my internal self, and for that I feel tremendously lucky.

Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.

How could we be miserable, when there is music?

All of us are pilgrims on this earth. I have even heard it said that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.

There is a vast region of enormous potential located somewhere between your ears.

It took me years to eat a lot of shellfish. I was probably 20 years old before I had even seen a shrimp cocktail. I like oysters, but fried.

There's something very edgy about Bill Murray out there improvising.

An author who enjoys writing may sometimes please other people by accident, but he can never pass on to any one else the zestful thrill he feels himself.

the sins of children rise up in judgment against their parents.

A pretty woman's worth some pains to see, Nor is she spoiled, I take it, if a crown Completes the forehead pale and tresses pure.

I keep on repeating, I'll say it for the last time-I'm not on some ego trip.

Wilderness is not so much a place, but a feeling about one.