If soldiering did not interest him, the soldiers themselves were another matter. He loved to sit with the men and draw out their first-hand stories of past campaigns.

I have lived most of my life in soldiers’ camps. I know what they saw. I know how they think. Their confidence sours as sudden as curdled milk.

I thought it best to add nothing further, to let the line of his thought lead him to his own conclusions.

Avner had lived too long and become too canny to claim the crown of Israel for himself.

Even though he said no store in uncanny things, he was soldier enough to value with whatever weapon came to hand.

When a kingdom rests on it, I always expect difficulty. Then, if there is none, no blame. But if there is, one is prepared.

No one sits, as you do, so close to a king, who does not begin to grasp how the levers of power work, and the cost of the oil that must grease them.

This night he was a king before he was a man. At this time, this troubled me. Later, I would have cause to wish it were always so.

He is able to put aside personal feelings and see the broad strokes. Experience counts in these things.

David ran through concrete advantages. And then set aside the practical. The pragmatist was gone, replaced by the poet and mystic.

The stories that grow up around a king are strong vines with a fierce grip.

Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing.

How ugly we must look to them, spilling light into every dark corner to push back the shadows, blinding ourselves to the true beauty of emptiness.

I've hated some of them too. Most of them sometimes. And they do think differently, but that's a good thing, isn't it? A hand isn't a f-foot, but I need them both to hunt.

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

I like seeing what the comedian thinks is funny, not just what they think I'll think is funny.

The teacher has nothing to do with people who use their mental powers to block the enlightenment of others. These people lack control. What can you teach someone who lacks control?

Suppose that climate change is not real and all we do is adopt green technologies, which our economy and our technology is perfectly capable of. Then all we've done is given our kids a cleaner world.

If you don’t know God as beautiful and satisfying, you don’t know him.

The overall concept comes first and then that informs the product, the shoot and how we communicate it. Everything comes back to the concept. It all gets thought about at the same time.

These days, everything is magnified very quickly by the media - the slightest slip can turn into a catastrophe.