“Writers are diffident creatures — they need encouragement.”

The young people think the old people are fools — but the old people know the young people are fools.

If you place your head in a lion’s mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.

Trains are wonderful…. To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers, in fact, to see life.

Time does not dispose of a question – it only presents it anew in a different guise.

It’s very inconvenient to be loved. Nearly everyone has found that out, sooner or later. The fewer people who love you the less you will have to suffer.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

Too much mercy often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

I married an archeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.

When engaged in eating, the brain should be the servant of the stomach.

The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself – and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.

What they need is a little immorality in their lives. Then they wouldn’t be so busy looking for it in other people’s.

Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.

The tragedy of life is that people do not change.

I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble.

Bitterness leads nowhere. It turns back on itself. It is the eternal cul-de-sac.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it.

Just try to be the best you can be; never cease trying to be the best you can be. That’s in your power.

Fight for what makes you move on. Accept what you can not change. And part with what pulls you down.

Stop worrying that you haven’t reached a particular goal at a particular time.  

A rose can never be a sunflower, and a sunflower can never be a rose. All flowers are beautiful in their own way, and that’s like women too. I want to encourage women to embrace their own uniqueness.

I want to encourage women to embrace their own uniqueness.

I think in black communities today we need to encourage a lot more cross racial organizing.

There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.