Truth

"Assuming is a form of giving away your power to another regarding an outcome that concerns you."

"He had never clearly fathomed the true weight of a word of good, truth, and purity cast in the stream of human speech and the deep bend it cut in it. Nor had he thought that a word spoken boldly and loudly, with no hint of false shame, but rather with courage, that this word would not drown in the ugly cries of fashionable satyrs but would plunge like a pearl into the abyss of public life and always find itself a shell. Many stumble over a good word, blushing in embarrassment, and utter a careless word boldly and loudly, never suspecting that it, too, unfortunately, will not go for naught but will leave a long trail of often times ineradicable evil.p. 296"

"Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed."

"The truth is, I always want to kiss you."

"I fear for the world the Internet is creating. Before the advent of the web, if you wanted to sustain a belief in far-fetched ideas, you had to go out into the desert, or live on a compound in the mountains, or move from one badly furnished room to another in a series of safe houses. Physical reality—the discomfort and difficulty of abandoning one’s normal life—put a natural break on the formation of cults, separatist colonies, underground groups, apocalyptic churches, and extreme political parties. But now, without leaving home, from the comfort of your easy chair, you can divorce yourself from the consensus on what constitutes “truth.” Each person can live in a private thought bubble, reading only those websites that reinforce his or her desired beliefs, joining only those online groups that give sustenance when the believer’s courage flags."

"I saw a bullfrog snap a tiny bird off a reed once, swallowing it just like that, grinding the singing thing to foodstuff in its slimy belly, and the witnessing of that act produced in me an insight: that this moment of terror before resignation was possibly the only ascertainable moment of truth we can ever know in life."

"It is actually a good survival strategy to manipulate twist, and reorganize the truth in a way that is more consistent with what we can psychologically tolerate."

"Martha," she said. "Just let it go." "I'm trying," I said. I want to explain to her that this was like telling someone who has been mauled to death by a bear to let the animal go while it was still worrying what was left of her leg. I didn't have my situation; it had me. There was nothing I wanted more than to let go of it, but I didn't know how. I eventually figured it out, but the method that works for me proved to be exactly the opposite of what Debra intended. She meant that I should never tell the story, but telling the story is the only way to let go of trauma. Letting it go is precisely what I am doing now, in the hopes that it will help others in similar situations find the courage to tell their stories, but I sincerely doubt that Debra will approve."

"We get up in the morning and do what we must to survive. Nothing else is true, and nothing else matters."

"You get up each morning and do what you can to survive. Nothing else is true, and nothing else matters."

"Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism."

"I am a great success, not because of what I have, but because, through service, I found enduring happiness."

"Life becomes invaluable when we spend it in the service of others."

"There is only one way to happiness and that is through service."

"Happiness is the ultimate purpose of our life and you find it in service."

"The moral purpose of every human life should be to attain happiness through service to humanity."

"The service [Jesus] gave to humanity was given even when we least merited that sacrifice. There is a joy in service that transcends emotional temporariness."

"The ego taunts truth with sarcasm."

"When denial is in play, a person simply refuses to recognize the truth, no matter how apparent."

"I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I am not lying to you."