Familiarity can blind you

He came to see his early failure as a lucky break, an accidental escape from a trap that had been set for him, and he was very trap-wary about institutional truths for the remainder of his time.

Metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.

To all appearances he was just drifting. In actuality he was just drifting. Drifting is what one does when looking at lateral truth.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire.

That's the way it is. The intelligence of the mind can't think of any reason to live, but it goes on anyway because the intelligence of the cells can't think of any reason to die

Mental reflection os so much more interesting than tv [that]it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant, but it never is.

When you’ve got a Chautauqua in your head, it’s extremely hard not to inflict it on innocent people.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.

It’s an old split. Like the one between art and art history. One does it and the other talks about how it’s done and the talk about how it’s done never seems to match how one does it.

Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living.

I am a pioneer now, looking onto a promised land.

To the ocean. That sounds right. Where the waves roll in slowly and there’s always a roar and you can’t fall anywhere. You’re already there.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard.

Love affairs are for emotional sprinters; the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners.

To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.

This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.

This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.

It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way

One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.

Money, it is often said, does not bring happiness; it must be added, however, that it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.

I was afraid and did not know what I feared, which is the worst kind of fear.

Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.

To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.

All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children....

Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity.

I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.

There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.

God, youth is a terrible time! So much feeling and so little notion of how to handle it!

You're all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things!

No action is ever lost - nothing we do is without result. It's obvious, of course, but how many people ever really believe it, or act as if it were so?

Nothing is more dangerous to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library.

A world without corruption would be a strange world indeed - and a damned bad world for lawyers, let me say.

An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows. All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages.

My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing but could not help regretting the damnable expense.

My lifelong involvement with Mrs Dempster began at 5:58 o'clock p.m. on 27 December 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old.

Life itself is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about potty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order.

Conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions.

Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there's a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the life of your betters.