Richard Bach

The world’s crazy, when it comes to beauty.

Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.

Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.

If you love someone set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks.

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.

When it comes to the story of my heart, I am the villain, locking it away; denying its right be free. The chains are tight, restricting its growth; long enough to see through the window of opportunity, but the only escape it has, is via the pen. Why do I deny myself the opportunities? I know it comes from a place of protection, but also of fear. I think my heart has grown a resentment because of this betrayal, and has decided, enough is enough.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

To choose time is to save time.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?

If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.

Consequences are unpitying.

It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things.