Helen's books were her friends, "the kind you invite for dinner in the middle of winter, " she'd told him, " and spend all night talking and never go to bed.

In a democracy the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is indispensable.

If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

We are praised or blamed, as the one or the other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of discernment.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.

Make the work you are doing today better than the work you did yesterday.

Work. Write. Read. Keep putting words on the page, because that's the only way you'll get better.

I didn't like the '80s at all; it was a vulgar moment of fashion.

It's really bizarre because no one knows this, but elephants have killed more animal trainers than any other animal.

In them was not the savage blankness of the reptile species. Instead there was something far worse - burning, unquenchable rage mixed with the self-mocking irony of great intelligence.