“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.”

People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.

Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.

History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.

It is easy to proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God; it is hard to make men equal on earth in the sight of men.

The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.