“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.”

“Your heart and your mouth wil be in two separate parts of your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand.”

“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.”

“HIGGINSI find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.PICKERINGAt what, for example?HIGGINSOh, Lord knows! I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind.”

“Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.”

“It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”

“You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.”