“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

“I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.”

“When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.”

“"The Guide says there is an art to flying," said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."”

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”

“I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.”

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”

“People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but it's the way you live your life that matters.”

“If a relationship can't survive the long term, why would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?”

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”

“But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers I have read, all the people I have met, all the women I have loved, and all the cities I have visited.”

“Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.”

“People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than for being right.”

“There are no happy endings.”

“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.”

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

“Name one hero who was happy.”

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them, if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”

“What you must understand about me is that I'm a deeply unhappy person.”

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.”

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.”

“If cats looked like frogs, we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.”

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”

“Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.”

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

“Knowing others is intelligence.”

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.”

“Live to the point of tears.”

“It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.”