“So we’ll just let things take their course, and never be sorry.”

I was within and without. Simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

Life is so damned hard, so damned hard… It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can’t be hurt ever any more. That’s the last and worst thing it does.

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

You are the loveliest thing that I have ever known.

The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one’s mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind

Long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

Actually that’s my secret — I can’t even talk about you to anybody because I don’t want any more people to know how wonderful you are.

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.

The reason one writes isn’t the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

You really ought to read more books – you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.

Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.

Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.

I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway

I come as a full course meal, I will no longer hand myself out like a menu and wait for people to pick me out.

The connections we make in the course of a life, maybe that’s what heaven is.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

I’m telling you that India is that way, now set my course.

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

Sexual intercourse is a slight attack of apoplexy.

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets tough.

Reading has changed the course of my life radically. I did not aim behind it to gain any certificates to improve my position. Rather, I wanted to live intellectually.