Mars has long exerted a pull on the human imagination. The erratically moving red star in the sky was seen as sinister or violent by the ancients: The Greeks identified it with Ares, the god of war; the Babylonians named it after Nergal, god of the underworld. To the ancient Chinese, it was Ying-huo, the fire planet.

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

The first breath of adultery is the freest; after it, constraints aping marriage develop.

We are most alive when we're in love.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

I know more about what it's like to be elderly and infirm and kind of stupid, the way you get forgetful, but on the other hand I'm a littler, wiser, dare we say? The word 'wisdom' has kind of faded out of our vocabulary, but yeah, I'm a little wiser.

What interests me is why men think of women as witches. It's because they're so fascinating and exasperating, so other.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

I must say, when I reread myself, it's the poetry I tend to look at. It's the most exciting to write, and it's over the quickest.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.

Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.

In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity.

Humor is my default mode.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.

How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.

I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday.

I'd imagine my wedding as a fairy tale... huge, beautiful and white.

I travel around the world constantly promoting my projects and endorsing products. Yes, I do get paid to go to parties; in fact, I'm the person who started the whole trend of paid appearances. But when you see me at a party, I'm always working or promoting something.

I get along with guys; most of my friends are guys. It's easier to trust men sometimes. I only have a few close girlfriends that I trust.

I've made all my money on my own without my family and I work very hard.

My mom decorated with lots of antiques. I never liked it when I was a little girl - I wanted to live in a modern house. But now I love it.

I'm not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me. I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that.

Being grown up and in a serious relationship, I've learned so much. I'm happier than I've every been.

I'm blonde and tanned and normal-sized! I'm sweet, shy, funny, have a big heart and I'm nice - and I like to eat.

The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.

When I was younger, my family would go camping and fishing on our ranches. My dad loves being around all kinds of animals. He's the one who got me to be a really big animal lover.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.

Love is the beauty of the soul.