The Mysteries of Life

Even the strongest and bravest must sometimes weep. It shows they have a great heart, one that can feel compassion for others.

Facts are like cows. If you look them in the face long enough, they generally run away.

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.

If you don't like someone's story, write your own.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

One only dies once, and if one does not die well, a good opportunity is lost and will not present itself again.

To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them.

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?

Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.

I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me.

To die, it's easy. But you have to struggle for life.

Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep- it can't be done abruptly.

The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.