Gold is the key, whatever else we try; and that sweet metal aids the conqueror in every case, in love as well as war.

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were.

I assure you, an educated fool is more foolish than an uneducated one.

I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn't speak a single word that doesn't come straight from his heart.

People spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.

I hate all men, the ones because they are mean and vicious, and the others for being complaisant with the vicious ones.

Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend.

Folk whose own behavior is most ridiculous are always to the fore in slandering others.

A husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.

I dreamt -- marvellous error! -- that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.

You cannot drown a fish in the ocean, no matter how deep you sink it.

He realized that, despite the dangers and alarms of the day, waiting was perhaps the worst thing of all.

At Oxford University, the certainties of my atheist faith (and atheism is a faith) began to crumble

Talking to a golf ball won't do you any good, unless you do it while your opponent is teeing off.

What exactly is a french before it's fried?

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

Battles are lost or won in 15 minutes

Songs are kind of alive, I think; once you finish writing them, that doesn't mean that that's it for the song. It can have its own little life, I think.

For me writing isn't a mental exercise, it's barely even a literary exercise, it feels like a spiritual experience.