Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these: It might have been.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.

A little smile, a word of cheer, A bit of love from someone near, A little gift from one held dear, Best wishes for the coming year. These make a merry christmas!

Through this broad street, restless ever, ebbs and flows a human tide, wave on wave a living river; wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying.

Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod; And trembles on its arid stalk the hoar plum of the golden-rod.

Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

All the windows of my heart I open to the day.

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loveth all his works, Has left his Hope with all.

If thou of fortune be bereft, and in thy store there be but left two loaves, sell one, and with the dole, buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Green calm below, blue quietness above.

My father would tell me if I wasn't writing in meter verse, it wasn't poetry.

I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.

The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.

Every true Freethinker accords to each individual the right to mental freedom. Where this freedom leads is no concern of others so long as it encroaches not upon their rights.

Sentimentalists are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done.

Information imposes certain criteria on how it can be stored.

Any sort of political correctness needs to be swept out of the way

The more you touch something, the stronger it becomes.

I'm pretty brutal about getting rid of stuff. There wasn't anything where I was like, "Oh, I miss that," because usually it's for a good reason.

Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?