Let the ideas clash but not the hearts.

The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your losses.

Next door to Ethiopia spreading out along the strategic Red Sea coastline is Eritrea, a relatively new country, and a place that few Americans seem to fully understand.

A good manager is best when people barely know that he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him.

Why did I want to break all the rules? Because the rules didn’t make sense, that’s why

It is not good news, but we have to face reality.

In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.

In ways to greatness think on this, That slippery all ambition is

I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center.

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.