A toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

And the rest is rust and stardust.

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.

That's the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups.

If you as a pastor don't have a passion for evangelism then don't be surprised if your people done either.

I don't go out with strangers," I said. "Good thing I do. I'll pick you up at five.

To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.

But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.

Newspapers are to the body politic what arteries are to the human body, their function being to carry blood and sustenance and repair to every part of the body.

We have a tradition of passing our history orally and singing a lot of it and writing songs about it and there's kind of a calling in Irish voices when they're singing in their Irish accent.

The strongest force in the universe is a human being living consistently with his identity.

Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.