I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling?

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

Hope is a slow business.

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.

He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.

To oppose something is to maintain it... You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.

You have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough.