“All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.”

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Much of our waking experience is but a dream in the daylight.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

I love not to be choked with other men’s thoughts.

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

Of new acquaintances one can never be sure because one likes them one day that it will be so the next. Of old friends one is sure that it will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

One can say everything best over a meal.

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.

Character is not cut in marble – it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.

Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana’s loss, and gratitude for her all-too-short life. It is a chance to show to the whole world the British nation united in grief and respect.

I have my ups and my downs like anyone. All I can do is be me.

All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.

I’m going to be real as hell and show you who I am, because I want the kids to see who I really am and the basketball players to see who I really am, and that’s all that matters to me.

Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know. Dennis Rodman, of all people.

If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.

I’m obviously not going to give you everything about my whole life, but as far as my personality, you see me all the time from watching the games.

I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.