Old men want to feel that the experience which has come with their years is valuable, that their advice is valuable, that they possess a sagacity that could be obtained only through experience— a sagacity that could be of use to young men if only y...
Romance blossomed over a carrier bag full of mackerel. It wasn't exactly how I imagined it would happen; there were no sunsets, or butterflies, or birdsong, just some smelly dead fish and a slimy carrier bag.
Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you. Go for that communion, that real communion with your soul, and the discipline of expressing that communion with others. That doesn't come from competition. That comes f...
In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame... at your past, which naturally has a share with everything that now meets you.
Children are still the way you were as a child, sad and happy in just the same way--and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them, among the solitary children.
Perhaps all the dragons of your life are princesses, who are only waiting for us to show a little beauty and courage. Perhaps at the very bottom every horror is something helpless, that wants help from us
For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it becomes clear that most people get to know only one corner of their room, a window seat, a strip of floor which they pace up and down.
only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.
Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
Let your judgements have their own quiet, undisturbed development, which must, like all progress, come from deep within, and cannot in any way be pressed or hurried.
Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?
I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
The more sexual partners a woman has had, the more likely it is that she is depressed.
{...]I began to feel tears of frustration build up in my eyes, yearning to free themselves from their glandular prisons.
I wanted a ponytail for my 16th birthday, but daddy never bought me one. He thought that not only would I not be able to ride it, but it would also be unsuitable for a young lady to be a young man.
As seductive as it might have been to erase the grief and pain of the last ten years, it was also a lie. Young Alice was a fool. A sweet, innocent fool. Young Alice hadn't experienced ten years of living.
We know we are all tarnished, so we doubt everyone else too. It is sad situation, where we need a leader but cannot really trust anyone.
Religion allows people to ignore the needs of real beings in favour of the supposed wishes of a being that does not exist.
