All art is a kind of confession.

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.

Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white.

History judges a leader by results. Let my results do the talking.

Characters carrying the playwright's disapproval is a un-Shakespearian burden.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.

You can turn away the Mexicans, the African-Americans, the teenagers and other suspect groups, but there's no fence high enough to keep out the repo man.

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

On being asked by Channel 4's Derek Thompson if he owned horses - No, son. I don't like anything that eats while I sleep.

Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

Lit majors are not known for watching where they're going; most of us walk with our eyes in a book instead of on the path ahead.

Hope is the best possession.