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Quotes by Writer

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

"General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be."

"I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again."

"Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Gust have to go for the long haul. Curiosity's like a fun friend you can't really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own - with whatever guts you can muster."

"In dancing with the enemy one follows his steps even if counting under one's breath."

"Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt."

"The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

"Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you're ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don't need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to sack out in it and he's as happy as a worm in an apple - asleep."

"The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy."

"Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way."

"It's not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done."

"Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort."

"A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short."

"The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

"Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things."

"False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis."

"You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value."--Nimit in "Thailand."

"No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing."

"The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to."

"There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on."

"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."

"Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"

"The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility."

"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."

"Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car."

"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."

"You can feel the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-- no matter how smart or accomplished--they cry, they yearn, they hurt. But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love and a peaceful heart."

"This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."

"There are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything."
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