The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life.

I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.

The interest in life does not lie in what people do, nor even in their relations to each other, but largely in the power to communicate with a third party, antagonistic, enigmatic, yet perhaps persuadable, which one may call life in general.

Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigues, I have had my vision.

I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

fishing teaches a stern morality; inculcates a remorseless honesty.