“The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.”

“What you have learned from experience is worth much more than gold. If you have a house it may burn down. Any kind of possession can be lost, but your experience is yours forever. Keep it and find a way to use it.”

“The roots of any evil deed can be traced to the perpetrator's refusal to experience pain.”

“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”

“Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal to despair. We have not the right to despair, and, finally, we have not the reason to despair”

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or despair ... Come to it any way but lightly.”