Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
I think people want their illusions and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer.
The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.
I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud.