Like a christening, a wedding, a graduation ceremony, a holy war, a revolutioneven?a fireworksdisplay, agaudy promise of what life ought to be, not life itself.

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.

Curiosity is free-wheeling intelligence.

Curiosity endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in their own mode of life which springs from their cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will.

They have been playing golf for 800 years and nobody has satisfactorily said why.

The best thing about Eisenhower's Presidency was his Jeffersonian conviction that there should be as little government and as much golf as possible.

I believe Hollywood is the most effective and disastrous propaganda factory there has ever been in the history of human beings.

Texas does not, like any other region, simply have indigenous dishes. It proclaims them. It congratulates you, on your arrival, at having escaped from the slop pails of the other 49 states.

As always, the British especially shudder at the latest American vulgarity, and then they embrace it with enthusiasm two years later

People, when they first come to America, whether as travelers or settlers, become aware of a new and agreeable feeling: that the whole country is their oyster.

The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.

God lives and works in history. The outward mythology changes, the inward truth remains the same.

I'll be happy if running and I can grow old together.

The best defense against logic is ignorance.

I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company.

I think one of my favourite films is 'Dark Victory' with Bette Davis. Why? She was so wonderful in that film. And maybe I just want a good cry once in a while without having to go through a divorce.

I recommend free writing in the morning and the evening as a type of mental shower.

We can convince ourselves to do things in conjunction with one another that we wouldn't have been able to do as an individual.

You never understand how dear your privacy is until you lose it.

I don't think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion.