“Stumbling upon the next great invention in an; ah-ha! moment is a myth.”

“Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.”

“What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.”

“Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.”

“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.”

“Next to the discovery of the Turkana boy, the visit to Lascaux ranks as one of the great moments of my life.”

“In myths things always turn into their opposites as one version supersedes the next.”

“Your thoughts and beliefs of the past have created this moment, and all the moments up to this moment. What you are now choosing to believe and think and say will create the next moment and the next day and the next month and the next year.”

“But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover.”

“It seems far simpler to go ahead and say that the epic is a fantastic myth, that happens to be true of the material Universe, that other myths are true in terms of their cultural meaning, and that there's absolutely no problem with holding more than one story, just as there's no problem with viewing the sunset in terms of planetary rotation and spectra and nuclear fusions one moment and as visual splendor the next.”