As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.

You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.

Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.

What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.

Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.

two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes

I always feel like I'm struggling to become someone else. Like I'm trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I guess it's part of growing up; it's also an attempt to reinvent myself.

Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there- to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there.

What we needed were not words and promises but a steady accumulation of small realities.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.

People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.

Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?

Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that's worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn't even come close to answering the question. "What do you do?".

We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.

Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don't forget.

Life is. I am. Anything might happen. And I believe I may invest my life with meaning. The uncertainty is a blessing in disguise. If I were absolutely certain about all things, I would spend my life in anxious misery, fearful of losing my way. But since everything and anything are always possible, the miraculous is always nearby and wonders shall never, ever cease.

Love the battle between chaos and imagination. Remember: Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Remember: Acting is the way to live the greatest number of lives. Remember: Acting is the same as real life, lived intentionally. Never forget: The Fruit is out on the end of the limb. Go there.

Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity.

If you notice phrases, ideas, and anecdotes that closely resemble those that appear elsewhere in my writing, it's not a matter of sloppy editing. I'm repeating myself. I'm reshuffling words in the hope that just once I might say something exactly right. And I'm still wrestling with dilemmas that are not easily resolved or easily dismissed. I run at them again and again because I am not finished with them. Any may never be. Work-in- progress on a life-in-progress is what my writing is about. And some progress in the work is enough to keep it going on.

You are free to give life meaning, whatever meaning you want to give it.

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.