To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.

The wholeness we seek lives here, with and within us, now, in reality.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do.

Mistakes are a fact of life; they are building blocks, stepping stones, the way we learn new things. Columbus wasn’t looking for a New World, he was searching for a route to spices. All mistakes teach us something, so there are, in reality, no mistakes. Just things we learn.

How we treat each other is the only thing that matters.

Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.

The mayfly lives only one day. And sometimes it rains.

No story lives unless someone wants to listen.

People have a hard time accepting anything that overwhelms them.

For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal—to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.

When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you…. It’s like taking a drink of cold water when you are thirsty. Every tastebud on your tongue, every molecule in your body says thank you.

I believe the world is a mystery, and that mystery cannot be spoken of in words. We are all a mystery, we are part of the world which is itself a mystery.

There are no wrong roads to anywhere.

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

Both skepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice.

Don’t be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.

The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.