“But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.”

“The most important person you can ever talk to is yourself, so be careful what you say.
The most important person that you will evaluate is yourself, so be careful what you think.
The most important person you will love is yourself, so be careful what you do.”

“"I don't want to! Why should I?"
"Because more people will be happier if you do than if you don't."
"So what? I don't care about other people."
"You should."
"But why?"
"Because more people will be happier if you do than if you don't."”

“Why should you trouble yourself about the future? You do not even properly know about the present. Take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.”

“What do you care? You always liked loneliness better than you liked people. No offence — liking yourself’s the beginning of all love.”

“You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.”

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

“If you don’t care about my people, why should I care about yours?”

“People say that you should not micro-optimize. But if what you love is micro-optimization… that's what you should do.”

“It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.”