One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

All men hate the nagging.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Life is a song to me.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

Most of our lives aren’t that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

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

A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Whatever the reviewers feel about ‚The Casual Vacancy‘, it is what I wanted it to be, and you can’t say fairer than that as a writer.

A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals.

Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

But I’m pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Normally, when someone we love is turning away from a struggle, we self-protect by also turning away. That’s definitely my first response. I think change is more likely to happen if both partners have common language and a shared lens to see problems.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

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

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

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

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

Understanding is a two-way street.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

When he speaks to you he speaks with an earnest vibe and an earnest energy.

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

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.