“The greatest tragedy that can befall a man is never to know who he really is.”

“The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.”

“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.”

“You can be with a man for twenty years and never really know who he truly is. Then again, you can meet a man and know everything about him in an instant.”

“Ginger: You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?... It's all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad plowmen instead. It's all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it's even possible to find out. It's all the people who never get to know what it is that they can really be. It's all the wasted chances.”

“He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.”