Promise is the capacity for letting people down.

There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.

There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.

Promise is the capacity for letting people down.

The more I see of life the more I perceive that only through solitary communion with nature can one gain an idea of its richness and meaning.

A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; - such is our personality.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.