“There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.”

“Desperate people lose the thing that makes them human beings. They lose their heart. Anger and hate fill them so that they act like animals.”

“As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.”

“Nothingness is everything to philosophers. If you wonder what everything is, then you also wonder what nothing is. The question is whether you can talk about it and still make sense. Heidegger thought that although being and nothing are not something, we nevertheless have a sense of them in moods like anxiety, joy and boredom. I’m writing a book about Heidegger, which means I’m writing about nothing. The good thing about nothing is that there’s so much of it. Pretty much everywhere you go, there it is.”

“To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.”