“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”

“Love is an action you must repeat ceaselessly.”

“I have heard people bewailing man's landing on the moon, as though before it was touched by an astronaut's foot it was made of silver or mother-of-pearl, and that footprint turned it into gray dust. But the moon never was made of mother-of-pearl, and it still shines as if it were so made.”

“He could not make them understand that...having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort.”

“What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures. ”