That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis‘ future.

The devil’s voice is sweet to hear.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

People who don’t like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that’s how life is.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

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

The only length of life that seems to satisfy the longings of the human heart is life everlasting.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Change alone is unchanging.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

I never felt settled or calm. You can’t really commit to life when you feel that.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.

Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

All the time, I’ve felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn’t.

My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

And no, we don’t know where it will lead. We just know there’s something much bigger than any of us here.

When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

I love life because what more is there?

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

Over the years I’ve seen people lose a spouse and then withdraw and lose interest in life, and I believe we need to resist that.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.

Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.