Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

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.

The internal machinery of life, the chemistry of the parts, is something beautiful. And it turns out that all life is interconnected with all other life.

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

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

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.

To be able to throw one’s self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman’s smile – that is happiness.

Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one’s life.

It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more.

Happiness is the cessation of suffering.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.

The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children. I know, because for many years my life was not peaceful, and I was miserable.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Many people tell me that they don ‚t know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That’s good.

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

At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Art is the proper task of life.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

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

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.