“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

“No one dies of fatal truths nowadays: there are too many antidotes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with stretching the truth. We stretch taffy, and that just makes it more delicious.”

“For people who say they hate being lied to, just start telling them nothing but the pure truth–about everything. That will teach them”

“Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of all sound knowledge, but they will not even stop to learn!”

“They’re so broke that they’ve actually cut essential services. In many places, they’ve cut policemen, because, who the fuck needs them? Or firemen, son of a bitch, it’s much more fun watching something burn down.”

“It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads.”

“Imagine you come upon a house painted brown. What color would you say the house was?””Why brown, of course.””But what if I came upon it from the other side, and found it to be white?””That would be absurd. Who would paint a house two colors?”He ignored my question. “You say it’s brown, and I say it’s white. Who’s right?””We’re both right.””Non,” he said. “We’re both wrong. The house isn’t brown or white. It’s both. You and I only see one side. But that doesn’t mean the other side doesn’t exist. To not see the whole is to not see the truth.”

“It’s easy to talk big, but the important thing is whether or not you clean up the shit.”

“There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things she doesn’t know; like how I remember when she first came home from the hospital, a big pink blob with a perma-smile, and she used to fall asleep while grabbing on to my pinter finger; how I sued to give her piggyback rides up and down the beach on Cape Cod, and she would tub on my ponytail to direct me one way or the other; how soft and furry her head was when she was first born; that the first time you kiss someone you’ll be nervous, and it will be weird, and it won’t be as good as you want it to be, and that’s okay; how you should only fall in love with people who will fall in love back… I feel an ache in my throat, but i manage to smile. Two conflicting desires go through me at the same time, each as sharp as a razor blade: I want to see you grow up and Don’t ever change.”

“People are basically irritating. Myself included. ”

“In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.”

“In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution – is not my solution.”

“It’s only words… unless they’re true.”

“When i tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.”