“Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.”

Never cut what you can untie.

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Life must be kept up at a great rate in order to absorb any considerable amount of learning.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

By faithfully working eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

For dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.

It is amazing how many hints and guides and intuitions for living come to the sensitive person who has ears to hear what his body is saying.

Any top-level athlete, it’s always the same. There’s always that hint of arrogance there… It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best.

My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They’re just horizontal lines.

There’s not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.

Give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves;

A lot of the questions that anyone would naturally have about their family, you’ll get much of the answers for, or at least hints to where it will go, in the future.