“A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.”

“The most important question a seminary student must answer about his professor is not, 'Is he orthodox?,' but 'Is he honest?”

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”

“A man must walk only his own path...Never another's or his feet will grow tired and sore. And he will feel lost even when he arrives.”

“Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying..”

“He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”