“When we really want to go for something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for self-important people.”

Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Only youth has a taste of immortality.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.

Perhaps only those people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the world.

Give up bearing children and bear hope and love and devotion to those already born.

We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.

He felt he had lost it for good, he knew what it was to have been in communication with her, and to be cast off again. In misery, his heart like a heavy stone, he went about unliving.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself

If I were the moon, I know where I would fall down.

Love is never a fulfillment. Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.

Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.

Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.

There’s one thing I’m really good at, and that’s hitting the ball over a net, in a box. I’m excellent.

Family’s first, and that’s what matters most. We realize that our love goes deeper than the tennis game.

The most important thing is to be a midfielder first, not scoring goals. You have to make the game, make an assist for the team, and if you can score, it’s a plus for the team.

I’d noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we’d play games where there was running or jumping.

I can only control what I do when I go compete.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

On the field, aggression can sometimes be a positive emotion. It boosts performance and can lift your game. But over the years, I have learnt that restrained aggression is a better animal. That way, you will conserve your energy and won’t spend yourself quickly.