Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for.

One of the marks of a great poet is that he creates his own family of words and teaches them to live together in harmony and to help one another.

One road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about your friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then, if we do that, we will never suffer a moment's boredom.

The more we feel sorry for ourselves, the less sorry others will feel for us. People don't waste their small store of sympathy on those who can provide it so richly for themselves.

We soon cease to feel the grief at the deaths of our friends, yet we continue to the end of our lives to miss them. They are still with us in their absence.

We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited and gives us what we have earned.