A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.

It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.

Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.

You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.

Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we choose.

I have so little mastered the art of tranquil living that wherever I go I trail storm clouds of drama around me.

What we get in steerage is not the refuse, but the sinew and bone of all the nations.

You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose.

Our actions are reflections, not of who we are, but who we think we are.

What is love really, but two imperfect people staring at their reflection and loving what they see...because someone chose to stand beside them.

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

I think people don't realize how many hours of practice goes into becoming a musician and getting better.

I mean, really, whatever you woke up worrying about this morning, get over it. How important in the greater scheme of things can it possibly be? Make your peace and move on.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Photography to me is an addiction. I get jittery after a couple of days without a camera. Everyone who knows me says I'm happiest when I'm shooting.

The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.

May we be people of honesty and integrity trying to do the right thing at all times and in all circumstances.