“It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.”

I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.

You can talk good ideas out of existence.

God save us from people who mean well.

I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.

The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.

I spent many years of my life as an economist and demographer. I was finally distracted by writing my novels and poetry. I’m enormously happy that was the case. I feel that with writing I have found my metier.

In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have; oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.

I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.

I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.

Man without life companion is either god or beast.

I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.

Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

Being against evil doesn’t make you good.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

You can make money doing evil.

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.

I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.