The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.