“It seems to me that a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty.”

Longevity can’t be the only test of love.

Experiencing life through a book can help you learn without all the pain of going through the experiences first hand.

And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces-spaces you know can’t ever be filled.

Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.

When people’s emotions are involved they don’t want to listen.

I love Arkansas but I think Arkansas has its share of unlit minds.

The world is not a rational place.

Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain’t no greater love in this here world than that.

Look inside yourself and you’ll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.

I believe that love is better than hate. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral.

Maybe…in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe…maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it’s a little like life. I mean it’s powerful going down and that doesn’t even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.

A person’s got to think, otherwise that person’s no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he’d know he was making a thousand children laugh.

Keep in mind that life produces no maestros, only students of varying shades of ineptitude.

What is genius, anyway, if it isn’t the ability to give an adequate response to a great challenge?

I was hooked on writing. I mean, where else can you get paid for sticking your nose into somebody else’s business?

What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you’re in pain?

Cruelty in the theatre is unrelenting decisiveness, diligence, strictness.

I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.

Illusions must be out to death. That is the cruelty of growing up.

Cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.

Limited by the world, which I oppose, jagged by it, I shall be all the more handsome and sparkling as the angles which wound me and give me shape are more acute and the jagging more cruel.

Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted on either the sick or the well.

And when we hurt someone whose hurt us, do we call it coping or cruelty?

Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time Be crushed by the spirit of light.