When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

C. S. Lewis

A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

Tom Bissell

At the end of the day, life is about being happy being who you are, and I feel like we are so blessed to have the support system and the best family to really just support each other no matter what we're going through.

Kim Kardashian

Don't tell your kids you had an easy birth or they won't respect you. For years I used to wake up my daughter and say, 'Melissa you ripped me to shreds. Now go back to sleep.'.

Joan Rivers

It's lonely to say goodbye. Very lonely. Partings are the beginnings of new meetings. Beginnings happen because there are endingsMeetings. Beginnings. It's not too lateto believe in them after the fact.

Natsuki Takaya

What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power.

Bertrand Russell

Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says 'you're next.' Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries.

Christopher Hitchens

No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.

Tacitus

Don't be afraid to make a mistake. But make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.

Akio Morita

God is one, but he has innumerable forms. He is the creator of all and He himself takes the human form.

Guru Nanak

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Henry Miller

I write reviews of science books for the Boston Globe, so I like to give science books.

Anthony Doerr