Experience is primarily the ability to restrain our fleeting impulses.

There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory.

If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you're already late.

That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.

Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villainy. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves.

It's great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realized that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer.

But even if we were to disappear, people would still be divided into people and Others. No matter how those Others were different.People can't get by without Others. Put two people on an uninhabited island, and you'll have a human being and an Other. And the difference is that an Other is always tormented by his differentness. It's easier for people. They know they're people, and that's what they ought to be. And they all have no choice but to be that way. All of them, forever.