“Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?”

“Life and those who rear us teach lessons that break us. How we reassemble the broken pieces defines what we become.”

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

“One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful.. we let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to his goodness it becomes a routine..”

“When once asked what was missing from his classic textbook, Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson is reported to have responded, "the class struggle."”

“All people live in a fantasy in which they are the main character.”

“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”

“What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter”

“The villains are all parts of me. For years I've been wondering what it would be like if all those negative elements were forced onto the main character's side. I can understand a character with that kind of anger.”

“Criticism is twofold: that which teaches us what we are to choose, and that which teaches us what to avoid.”