Clarinets, like lawyers, have cases, mouthpieces, and they need a constant supply of hot air in order to function.

Santa Claus has the right idea - visit people only once a year.

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.

Always remember to forget the things that made you sad, but never forget to remember the things that made you glad.

Many people have asked me why there are three pedals in these grand pianos. Well the pedal in the middle is there to separate the two other pedals.

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

A Smile is a curve which can set a lot of things straight.

One afternoon, when I was four years old, my father came home, and he found me in the living room in front of a roaring fire, which made him very angry. Because we didn't have a fireplace.

He was happily married - but his wife wasn't.

I don't mind growing old. I'm just not used to it.

Did you know that Mozart had no arms and no legs? I've seen statues of him on people's pianos.

Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.

But all the long speeches, all the interminable days and hours that people had spent talking about my soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirling river that was making me dizzy.

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success.

I think isolation is one of the greatest problems, an ever-growing obstacle to political solidarity.

We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.

People on the streets are ready for hockey.

You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.

Uh-uh" Clay drawled above me, "Elena's played with you long enough, Its my turn

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

The novel is very much alive, indeed. In Toronto at the Sixth Annual International Festival of Authors (October 1985) I listened to novelists by the dozen.