Every fictioneer re-invents the world because the facts, things or people of the received world are unacceptable.

To learn something, to master something, anything, is as sweet as first love.

An age is best revealed by its artists of the second rank.

We change, but always at a cost: to win this you lose that.

On the hot, fragrant afternoon of my graduation from college it seemed that good fortune was not merely latent but unavoidable, folded and in the bag.

A magician reveals himself not only by the magic he presents but also by the respect and entertainment he gives to his audience.

It was only a sunny smile And little it cost in the giving. But like morning light it scattered the night And made the day worth living.

A foolish man... built his house upon the sand.

Freedom is our birthright.

It's humiliating to have to explain your value.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know, I've written a whole song in an hour.

The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us.

Forms of government are forged mainly in the fire of practice, not in the vacuum of theory. They respond to national character and to national realities.

The only thing I have to give to make you smile, to win you with, are all the mornings still to live.

And at that moment, a lilting melody lifts to the moon as a single sparrow sings.