In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you.

You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.

Life... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.

In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you.

There are moments when you feel free, moments when you have energy, moments when you have hope, but you can't rely on any of these things to see you through. Circumstances do that.

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved. I had a very happy working life, and when I retired, I thought I must do something, and I've always read a lot of fiction - you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction, I should say, so I thought I'd try.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative uses other people to get her own way and works within whatever system she is in.

What is interesting about self analysis is that it leads nowhere it is an art form in itself.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence, a lot passes you by, simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.

Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Sometimes life's so much cooler when you just don't know any better and all the painful lessons have not hammered your head open yet.