“Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world is”
“It can be worse to win the wrong game than to lose the one you actually enjoy”
“No man who cares about originality will ever be original. It’s the man who’s only thinking about doing a good job or telling the truth who becomes really original—and doesn’t notice it.”
“The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.”
“If everybody is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.”
“The primary indication of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.”
“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”
“You become what you give your attention to…If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.”
“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.”
“We are often more frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
“We must all wear out or rust out, everyone of us. My choice is to wear out.”
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
“Quantity produces quality,”
“When someone tells you something is wrong with your writing, they’re usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they’re almost always wrong.”
“If I don’t write it down immediately I forget it right away. If I put it into a sketchbook I never forget it, and I never have to look it up again.”
“I would define a specialist as a man who no longer sees the forest of truth for the trees of facts.”
“Just as we take a big breath before we go underwater, we need to grab some air before we bury ourselves with a creative pursuit.”
“Great passions are maladies without hope.”
“We are what we repeatedly do.”
“You can’t learn that which you think you already know”
“There are two types of writers, those who write because they have something they have to say and those who write for the sake of writing.”
“We deny ourselves leisure so we can be at leisure, and fight wars so that we can be at peace.”
“A remarkable, glorious achievement is just what a long series of unremarkable, unglorious tasks looks like from far away.”
“Only a sith deals in absolutes.”
“Those who can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”
“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.”
“It’s useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into”
“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation to come.”
“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
“Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.”
“Nobody cares about what you are not good at. They only care about the things you are good at.”
“Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.”
“He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears.”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
“The problem is not the child that fears the dark, it’s the adult that fears the light.”
“People who know the most at something, have the most to unlearn when the world changes.”
“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap. If you want happiness for a day — go fishing. If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a life time — help someone else.”
“The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.”
“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”
“It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.”
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
“Everyone is exactly the same in that they walk around thinking their experiences are completely unique.”
“A person usually has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good and a real one.”
