Quotes by Robert Grudin

Written truth is four-dimensional. If we consult it at the wrong time, or read it at the wrong place, it is as empty and shapeless as a dress on a hook.

The mind which can totally and inanely forget its work and obligations is often also the mind which can, at the proper time, give them the fullest attention.

We are wistful about the golden days of the past and dream of a distant future unclouded by necessity. But I suspect that if our inner souls were asked what in life they really missed, the answer would be primal danger and stress.

You may cure yourself of a depression by forcing yourself to perform, in rapid order and with excruciating concentration, half a dozen or so unpleasant chores, especially if they have long been postponed. This is a kind of homeopathic purgative, a treatment of like with like.

In the landscape of time, there are few locations less comfortable than that of one who waits for some person or event to arrive at some unknown moment in the future.

Plans made swiftly and intuitively are likely to have flaws. Plans made carefully and comprehensively are sure to.

The reason so many promises are not kept is the same as the reason they are made in the first place.

True intimacy is a human constant. People of all types find it equally hard to achieve, equally precious to hold. Age, education, social status, make little difference here; even genius does not presuppose the talent to reveal one's self completely and completely absorb one's self in another personality. Intimacy is to love what concentration is to work: a simultaneous drawing together to attention and release of energy.

No psychological message is so open to question as that which tells us that we have nothing left to do or to give.

We pamper the present like a spoiled child, obeying its superficial demands but ignoring its real needs.