Abstracted hatred is incredibly potent. There's never the risk of having it challenged by the reality of living human beings.

A political conversation is a conversation in which people with different views come to agreements about how they're going to inhabit this society together.

Where incompetence is prized, it is ever-present.

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.

Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.

Only the broken-hearted know the truth about love.

Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

Cure for an obsession: get another one.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.

The time I kill is killing me.

Love begins with an image; lust with a sensation.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.

Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.

Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.

We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.

If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.

Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.

A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.

Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Documents create a paper reality we call proof.

The lonely become either thoughtful or empty.

Romance is tempestuous. Love is calm.

Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?

A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings.

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

The wisdom of age: don't stop walking.

Melancholy is as seductive as Ecstasy.

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.

Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.

I see what you mean, but I do not think what you think.

What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.

Affection reproaches, but does not denounce.

Observe decorum, and it will open a path to morality.

The beloved is the ultimate fetish.

To understand someone, find out how he spends his money.

Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

Women encourage men to be childish, then scold them.

Consciousness is our only reprieve from Time.

We are more tied to our faults than to our virtues.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.