Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity.

Every talent is unearned, however, and with it comes a solemn obligation to use it as fully and as wisely as possible.

The word impossible contains the word possible' What's that-- some Zen thing?' I think Star Trek. Mr. Spock.

Like children, dogs want discipline and are most secure when they have rules to live by. The happiest dogs are those with gentle masters who quietly but firmly demand respect.

He felt ... a suspicion-no, a conviction-than he had been abandoned, forgotten, and that no one in the whole world cared or would ever care enough about him to really find out what he was like and what his dreams were. He was an outcast, a creature somehow vastly different from all other people, an object of scorn and derision, an outsider, secretly loathed and ridiculed by everyone who met him, even by those few who professed to love him.

When it came to formal classes, I was a slacker. But I've always been a diligent autodidact and can teach myself virtually any subject if I have a serious interest in it.

People couldn't bear to go on living if they faced every cold truth about themselves.