“You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world’s hard work.”

The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.

You can’t test courage cautiously.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.

The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful

It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.

Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.

We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.

Adverbs are a sign that you’ve used the wrong verb.

We live in all we seek.

He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand – that of finding a workable compromise between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time – give it, give it all, give it now.

No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land.

Write about winter in the summer.

A lot of critics object to what I do, but I got into comedy to make people laugh, and I’ve always worked hard.

It feels like all my hard work is getting recognized. It makes me work even harder.

I feel very lucky. My family and I have worked hard, and I feel very grateful.

The last thing you want to do is finish playing or doing anything and wish you would have worked harder.

It doesn’t take talent to work hard.

Luck tends to come to people who are prepared.

Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

I’m continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.