"So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?"

"And what, O Queen, are those things that are dear to a man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is not resting-place among them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number."

"Tao simply means the ultimate principle that binds the whole existence together. Existence is not a chaos; that much is certain. It is a cosmos. There is immense order in it, intrinsic order in it, and the name of that order is Tao."

"I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone."

"All men should be feminists. If men care about women’s rights the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered – it leads to a better society."

"There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums."

"One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things."

"Cynicism is extremely contagious, and the most pious among us cannot long endure its potency. The gullible should be on their guard, however, since this endearing quality frequently masquerades as wit."