“There’s never any great risk as long as you have money.”

I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual.

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?

I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.

Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.

It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?

Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.

Human relations are impossible. When they are real they are uncomfortable, and when they are comfortable they are unreal. It was for the journey into solitude that the human soul was created.

The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.

But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable.

Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.

The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.

But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.

Don’t begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.

… there are shadows because there are hills.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

It’s just unbelievable what he got away with and how long it took for him to be exposed. A guy like that should be hanged.

I once recommended [in a San Francisco Chronicle column] that a third arm – a plastic arm – be sewn at the base of the spine so that people could have a tripod to sit on while waiting in line, and it was taken seriously.

So in fact the only thing you can judge in this sport its the longterm. You can judge a career or a season, but not one race.

Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.

You deal with their balance over the long run.

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

Egyptians are like camels: they can put up with beatings, humiliation and starvation for a long time but when they rebel they do so suddenly and with a force that is impossible to control.

It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.