“He merely sought a framework, like a coat hanger on which he could hang his life. At least then it might look like a life which was ready to be inhabited rather than a crumpled garment on the floor.”
“Like all great fantasists, he has taught me about life, life in eternity rather than chronology, life in that time in which we are real.”
“A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.”
“He could very likely have appealed for leniency. At least he could have saved his life by agreeing to leave Athens. But had he done this he would not have been Socrates. He valued his conscience--and the truth-- higher than life.”
“He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”
“I didn’t feel like buying him the jacket he asked for for Christmas, so I just got him a coat hanger with a sticky note attached that read, “Here’s something for you to hang your dreams on, pal.”