I am thankful when I am hungry because then I know that when I eat, the food will taste better. Life has taught me that my true contentment rests in hope, and the pleasure itself is secondary. It is self-awareness, not happiness, that maintains peace.

I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.

Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.

It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self.

There's nothing more contagious than the laughter of young children; it doesn't even have to matter what they're laughing about.

We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer.

I find it a challenge to cooperate in a society where it's considered moral to critique a résumé yet immoral to critique morality.