I put up my thumb and it blotted out the planet Earth.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

The time to worrying about flying is when you’re on the ground. When you’re up in the air, it’s too late. No point in worrying about it then.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

I’m astounded by people who want to ‚know‘ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we’ve been having with painting. There’s no way of looking at art as though you hadn’t seen art before.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

One day it will be over, and I don’t care.

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Life is grim, and we don’t have to be grim all the time.

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.

I don’t have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don’t know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don’t know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don’t think you need all that stuff.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

When someone is impatient and says, ‚I haven’t got all day,‘ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

Little things affect little minds.