“The best men tell you the truth because they think you can take it; the worst men either try to preserve you in some innocent state with their false protection, or are ‘brutally honest.’ When someone tells, lets you think for yourself, experience your own emotions, he is treating you as a true equal, a friend…And the best men cook for you.”

“You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate. Let me tell you this. This is the thing I learned. If you take in someone else's poison – thinking you can cure them by sharing it – you will instead store it within you. Those men in the desert were smarter than you. They assumed he could be useful. So they saved him, but when he was no longer useful they left him.”

“If you’re honest with yourself as a writer, trying to tell the best story you can, your story will be an honest one. And your values will come out, no matter how hard you try to disguise them.”

“Families think they know what’s best for you. Your friends let you figure that out for yourself.”

“There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.”

“Character and ideals are catching. When you associate with men who aspire to the highest and best, you expose yourself to the qualities that make men great.”