The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it.

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all..