“My worst flaw is that I tell secrets, my own and everybody else's. ” 

“That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.” 

“Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape....For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place.” 

“He realized...that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious. ” 

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.” 

“Erotica is using a feather; pornograpy is using the whole chicken.” 

“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice.” 

“Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.” 

“You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found.” 

“We only have what we give.” 

There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known.

The pilgrim is humble and devout, and human, and charitable, and ready to smile and admire; therefore, he should comprehend the whole of his way, the people in it, and the hills and the clouds, and the habits of the various cities.

Money gives me pleasure all the time.

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.

An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight.

The microbe is so very small: You cannot take him out at all.

Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.

From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.

Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.

Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.

… that exasperating quality for which we have no name, which certainly is not accuracy, and which is quite the opposite of judgement, yet which catches the mind as brambles do our clothes.

What is needed is a form of tax which not only spares the small man at the expense of his wealthier rival, but actually subsidizes the small man where subsidy is necessary.

The accursed power which stands on privilege( and goes with women, champagne and bridge)

Child! Do not throw this book about; refrain from the unholy pleasure of cutting all the pictures out.