Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Life’s a rollercoaster. You’re up one minute; you’re down one minute. But who doesn’t like rollercoasters?

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death’s the other.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

My dad was the town drunk. Most of the time that’s not so bad; but New York City?

‚I wish life was not so short,‘ he thought. ‚Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.‘

We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

We live in a bewildering world.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

Remember that creating a successful marriage is like farming: you have to start over again every morning.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Tears are the silent language of grief.

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

If you get down and quarell everyday, you’re saying prayers to the devil, I say.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair.

It’s fun to be hopelessly in love. It’s dangerous, but it’s fun.

My life is the road, man. I need to keep moving.

Everyone has been in love, at some point or another.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

I take my kids to school. And if I go to work, I go to work, and they visit me on set. I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, very warm home.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

I feel like I just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it.

It’s pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

Where fear is, happiness is not.

There are certain nights you and your image just aren’t in the same bed.

Our focus needs to be less on what our legacy’s going to be or how we can control each other and more how we can give to each other.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.