It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits - like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits - involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding - inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.

I wonder whether, in the history of all the civilisations that have ever been, a more insanely optimistic notion has ever been entertained than that you and I,…

The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.

The first thing I remember about the world:is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which is at once the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides th…

Your success story is a bigger story than whatever you're trying to say on stage... Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier.

Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.

The first thing I remember about the world:is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which is at once the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides th…