If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it early.

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.