Some Thoughts about my Life

1. I wish I had known more sorrow when I was young. If I had, perhaps I would have lived my life with more wisdom.

2. Only when my co-workers tore my career like dogs did I learn any wisdom at all.

3. People are powerfully driven to be insiders. People will go against their judgment and interests to be insiders.

4. You never are wrong to assume that someone is more complex than you know.

5. Probably, I have never done anything with a pure motive.

6. In hell there is no virtue.

7. If everybody got into heaven who expected to go there, some of the angels would have to be riot police.

8. Whether we call it grace, or luck, or fate, there is something beyond our control that moves in our lives.

9. Trying to know what the present would be if the past were different is like trying to know the future.

10. It’s too bad you can’t live your life twice, and the first time didn’t count. Maybe that’s the idea of heaven.

11. I think of some women that I wanted to marry, and I am thankful that I didn’t marry them. I think of women who I had no interest in marrying, and I am dismayed at my stupidity.

12. It’s hard to convince somebody that they have a fortunate life if they are convinced otherwise.

13. Never bet against the love of God.

14. It is a good phrase, "A severe mercy."

15. If I want my advice heard, first I have to listen.

16. I am still learning about life. And some of the things I am learning seem fundamental.

17. As a lawyer, I spent years learning to attack. Now I’m learning to forebear.

18. I marvel at a functioning democracy, and a functioning economy, of three-hundred-million people.

 19. My parents had a phrase for when a person took a portion bigger than they could eat. It was "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach." I’m that way with books. My bedroom is filled with books that I’ve bought and I’ll never read.

20. I have that relationship to books because I crave wisdom and knowledge.

21. Craving is not having, but craving can lead to having.

22. One of the most important talents in life is knowing who to trust.

23. "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools." I have remembered this saying as "Do not show your anger." It is important to me. Sometimes I have remembered it too late.

24. I think of those people whom I tried to convince that they had a fortunate life and couldn’t. Perhaps tonight I understand them better than I did then.

25. For a long time I did not pray because praying felt like trespassing. I should pray more.