“Wouldn’t it be terrible if you’d spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do … and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you, you’d say, “Oh my God, I could have got so drunk…

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

“When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”

“Earlier in my life, I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see—the love…

“As I got older and things got more fixed and I couldn’t do anything about them and I had health problems – a couple of heart attacks, long hospital stays, this, that, the other – when things get settled like that, you make a deal, or you don’t, and that…

“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”