“Mistakes and omissions are one thing to correct. We will not throw away the hard rice, as long as it is still edible. We can still turn it into fried rice. But ignorance is a different matter. Those who are ignorant and unwilling to learn can no longer be corrected.”

“We should learn from the mistakes and experiences of others, particularly from those less knowledgable than we are. If our experiences are not grounded in reality, our decisions can never be correct.”

“We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.”

“Young people should be permitted to make mistakes. As long as their general orientation is correct, let them make minor mistakes. I believe that they can correct themselves in practical work.”

“She and I were still friends, but not best friends, not like we used to be. But we were still friends. She'd known me my whole life. It's hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.”

“No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away.”

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

“The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.”

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”

“Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition – the only powers through which you can found anything durable.”