"Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you're told and didn't try to understand things."

"How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life."

"We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us."

"Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy."

"And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of treesand changing leaves."

"I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life."

"If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else."

"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, Be more active, Show up more often."

"People are the most difficult thing in the world to change"

"She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on."

"The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good."

"You don't put your life into your books, you find it there."

"You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ."

"A complete stranger has the capacity to alter the life of another irrevocably. This domino effect has the capacity to change the course of an entire world. That is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing it. A decision that seems miniscule to you, may be monumental to the fate of the world."

"Distance sometimes lets you know who is worth keeping, and who is worth letting go."

"Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion."

"Hate is nothing when weighed against survival. (Valentine)"

"All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else."

"CALVIN:As usual goodness hardly puts up a fight."

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials."

"If you don't learn to laugh at life it'll surely kill you, that I know."

"And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit."