Human greatness is a rather difficult thing to account for, and more often than not one is mistaken in one’s hunches about somebody one has met.
All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy.
The basic truth of all things, as nearly as we may ever dream of determining and knowing this truth, is form, that which is, as it is. The way and shape of the thing no less than the thing itself...
In the most commonplace, tiresome, ridiculous, malicious, coarse, crude, or even crooked people or events I had to seek out rare things, good things, comic things, and I did so.
We get very little wisdom from success, you know.
Cowards are nice, they’re interesting, they’re gentle, they wouldn’t think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They’re very brave.
The order I found was the order of disorder.
Remember that every man is a variation of yourself.
I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant.
I never knew teachers are human beings like everybody else – and better too!
You must not be unkind, especially when it happens that you’re right.
Two years ago your father died, Ulysses. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us.
People are people. Don’t be afraid of them.
What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know?
To Armenians, half Armenians, quarter Armenians, and one-eight Armenians. Sixteen and thirty-second Armenians, and other winners, are likelier to be happy with a useful book.
We didn’t say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.
I see life as one life at one time, so many millions simultaneously, all over the earth.
My work has always been the product of my time.
I know you will remember this – that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world – no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.
I believe that time, with its infinite understanding, will one day forgive me.