By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.

Unfulfilled expectations bring unhappiness. Comparisons fill life with meanness. Avoid both to fill life with joyfulness.

I never liked hearing anyone say I was the new George Gershwin, because I knew I could have never even carried that man's music case. If George Gershwin hadn't died when he was thirty-nine years old, there is no knowing how much more great music he would have written.

We form our impression not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally, by comparing ourselves to people in the same boat as ourselves.

Although he didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks (grades or comparisons).

Comparisons are like rigid fingers—eager to point at a subject but unwilling to grasp it.

It is dangerous to make everybody go forward by the same road: and worse to measure others by oneself.