There is balance in life, but not fairness.

When people say of their tragedies, 'I don't often think of it now,' what they mean is it has entered permanently into their thoughts, and colors everything.

At first, there is something you expect of life. Later, there is what life expects of you. By the time you realize these are the same, it can be too late for expectations. What we are being, not what we are to be. They are the same thing.

Perhaps if we lived with less physical beauty we would develop our true natures more.

Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world.

Americans' great and secret fear is that America may turn out to be a phenomenon rather than a civilization.

Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness.