My Commonplace Book

One of the most difficult things to say to another person is I hope you will love me. Yet that is what we all want to say to one another -- to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends and even to strangers.

Soon all you'll have of me will be your memories of my stories.

There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

Perhaps when we weep for those in misery we must be silent about miseries of our own

Perhaps when all the tears have been shed the earth will be more fertile

Perhaps the mistaken road will end in a mistake

Sometimes, when I leave for work early in the morning and my wife and daughter are still asleep, I truly believe that I will never come back. I love them both, sincerely I do, and I can't explain how you can love a thing and want to be parted from it forever. Sometimes I wish she would kill me, collect the insurance, go on with her life and free me from the guilt of staying, the guilt of going.

'Life is a struggle, has to be,' he insisted. 'If there is no struggle, there is no life -- that's all.'

To her the earth was composed of hardships and insults.

He himself occupied a downtrodden position that had a private but distinct element of grandeur in its isolation.

Black as the cloud is it has a silver lining, bright with promise.

New York is, I firmly believe, the most charitable city in the world. Nowhere is there so eager a readiness to help, when it is known that help is wanted; nowhere are such armies of devoted workers, nowhere such abundance of means ready to the hand of those who know the need and how rightly to supply it.

The readiness of the poor to share what little they have with these who have even less is one of the few moral virtues of the tenements.

Some people meet their ghosts, and some don't. But we're all haunted by them.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  Meanwhile the world goes on.

'Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad consciousness and a deep heart. Truly great men, I think, must feel great sorrow in this world'