Nature was neither fair nor unfair. Those terms belonged to the world of men.

That's the strange thing about a good story. No pleasure if you can't share it.

With no other choices open to us, we'd turned our gaze seaward. The oceans were our America: they reached farther than any prairie, untamed as on the first day of creation. Nobody owned them.

They were probably scared of him and so they did what boys do around any object of fear: they went up close, pointed a finger, gave it a nickname, and masked their terror with roaring laughter.

They all lived so steeped in fear that the losses they had yet to suffer had already consumed them.

There was plenty for the eye to feast on, but nothing for the soul. He had a hunger for something that no sky could satisfy. Somewhere on the planet there had to be a different kind of light.

Your roots aren't to be found in your childhood so much as in your child. It's he who provides your link to the world, and home is wherever he is.

Loss was a night that never ended.

We were familiar with the line that separates grief from madness, and we know that sometimes the only way to stay on the right side of it is to scream.

Her grief was a burden so heavy, he came close to collapsing under it, and yet he couldn't lay it down.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than drowning in sight of land? Is there a single one of us who hasn't at least once felt haunted by the fear of slipping away within sight of a safe haven?

It's the ultimate goal every day you wake up, to be happy. At the end of the week, you want to be happy. Happy in love, happy in work, happy in life, happy with yourself. It's pretty simple.

As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom.

Right now, I'm following the Buddhist principle: Smile as abuse is hurled your way and this too shall pass.

Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.

I have fallen a hopeless victim to the Turk; he is the most charming of mortals.

The United States is the most innovative country in the world. But our leadership could slip away if we fail to properly fund primary, secondary and higher education.

It is worth it to leave behing my minor life for grander maybes.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.

We could tell Americans everything is okay and nothing is going to happen. The fact is, there is a very real threat.