The absurd vanity of metaphysicians who like to imagine that they create the world by thinking about it.
If you feel that you must suffer, then plan your suffering carefully – as you choose your dreams, as you conceive your ancestors.
A mother’s sorrow is more true, honorable, and beautiful than the detachment of the sage.
I have been a lucky man. But someone has to be.
Metaphysics is a cobweb that the mind weaves around things.
Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight?
Life is cruel? Compared to what?
Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.
Home is where, when you have to go there, you probably shouldn’t.
I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
Life imitates art – but badly.
For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough.
Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.
We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless.
A life without tragedy would not be worth living.
The consolation of reading biography: Most great men have led lives even more miserable than our own.
The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be – a man.
In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that’s on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.
My computer tells me that in twenty-five years there will be no more computers.