“One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.”

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.

A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

I passionately believe that’s it’s not just what you say that counts, it’s also how you say it – that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.

The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm… it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

The good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.

I think the performances that really communicate with me are the ones where I don’t feel like I’m watching someone and thinking: “They’re doing some really good acting.”

I have had 50 drinks in one go!

You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly.

Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.

I guess the bottomline is, if there are two versions, then the better one will click.

Her spirit is one that we absolutely need today, as we face odds that are akin to the divisive and systemic oppression that we read about in our history books, but it’s taken on a modern-day articulation of itself.

To practice Dhamma means to observe and examine oneself.

Take one step backward into the unknown.