Walk, first, through the fire, then philosophize.

Loss is essential. Loss is part and parcel of that necessary calamity called life.

I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. And there is not much percentage in the future.

Lately you are brooding too much about rights. Give up this dangerous habit.

The worst part of great poverty is that you become blind to it.

...you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.

What folly made young people, even those in middle age, think they were immortal? How much better, their lives, if they could remember the end. Carrying your death with you every day would make it hard to waste time on unkindness and anger and bitterness, on anything petty. That was the secret: remembering your dying time, in order to keep the stupid and the ugly out of your living time.