Like the actor, authority has faith in its false whiskers. But its deepest faith is in the human illusion. People will hang on to illusion as eagerly as life itself.

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.

Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.

The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.

Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.

A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.

Bad writing is not easier than good writing. It's just as hard to make a toilet seat as it is a castle window. Only the view is different.

The movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.

Television excites me because it seems to be the last stamping ground of poetry, the last place where I hear women's hair rhapsodically described, women's faces acclaimed in odelike language.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

Laughter, I realized, was the reverberating sound of a truth hitting a lie.

Why would you want someone who is conflicted and doesn't know if they love you or not?

My main message to folks who love animals is that you can do something every day to help them.

Fame is damaging when people become reliant on it for their sense of self, and their identity, when fame is linked to how you see yourself.

Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path.

The human condition ... is defined by the aspiration to always supersede oneself, which in turn requires nonconformity.

Leave your comfortable life and go in search of your kingdom.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The U.S. Geological Survey has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone is greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia.

Grace is humbling and restorative. It pulls you down because Christ had to die for you, but also lifts you up because he wanted to die for you.