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

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

Death is a fearful thing.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone’s got to go sometime.

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

If it’s a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.

Sometimes I just sit still and enjoy God’s presence.

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

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.

I mean, I feel like you get more bees with honey. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated in my life.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

I love Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove – there is so much life and vitality around Portobello and Ladbroke Grove. It has come up a lot since I started Virgin more than 40 years ago, but there is so much character.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled.

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

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it’s a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

I don’t think that faith, whatever you’re being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don’t want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.

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

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

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

The things I talk about and explain couldn’t happen – yet, they don’t seem impossible – you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane – and it’s trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

The child inside of you knows how to take things as they come, how to deal most effectively and happily with everything and everyone it encounters on this planet. If you can recapture that childlike essence of your being, you can stay ‚forever young at heart.‘

The loss of life will be irreplaceable.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

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

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.