"With all respect to Mr. Jefferson, I would put the pursuit of wisdom ahead of the pursuit of happiness."

“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”

“With writing ... you must keep in the habit. After a lapse it will take you not an hour, but a week, a month, maybe, to find your mood again - that mood in which things drop from heaven. There's no forcing it; you can't set your notions in front of you, and stare at them till they take shape; they have to come to you whether you ask them or not. ... And you have to be in the habit of that mood! Of inspiration!”

“But we must also look at renewable heat technology. More combined heat and power schemes, putting waste heat to better use. More district heating schemes. And more electric air and ground-source heat pumps, drawing warmth from the outside world to heat the indoors. Better insulation, smarter homes, and more efficient heating can help us cut our energy demand.”

“I tried to give up drugs by drinking.”

“The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself every time you meet a human being.”

“At religious instruction classes, I encountered The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, and the sincerity of the traveller in that book was overwhelming.”

“My God, how can anyone ever be a master of music?”

“I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.”