Gerald Boyd was a classic specimen of the self-made man. Born poor, he worked and studied his way up out of poverty under the guidance of his widowed grandmother.

An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious - just dead wrong.

The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars.

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.

The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.

The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.

What the New Yorker calls home would seem like a couple of closets to most Americans, yet he manages not only to live there but also to grow trees and cockroaches right on the premises.

In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's beloved.

Americans like fat books and thin women.

A solved problem creates two new problems, and the best prescription for happy living is not to solve any more problems.

It seems to be a law in American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic.

Don't be preoccupied with something that drags your mind downhill. Be someone who could be destined to shine and can have the ability reach ultimate goals for the future."

There is no greater fulfillment than working for what I want.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

disrespectful words cannot entirely be eaten, ever. Respect is a kind of Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses can't put it all the way up again.

I don't think anyone who has ever counted drinking amongst their hobbies has never kissed a man.

Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one's opponent's wildest dreams will become reality.

People do not want words - they want the sound of battle - the battle of destiny.

To be second with one game to go - you can't ask for more.

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

Demonstration, similitude & harmony are objects of reasoning. Invention, identity & melody are objects of intuition.