Private problems don't constitute an excuse for bad manners.

The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.

the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines.

Shrews are made, not born.

You can't drown your troubles ... because troubles can swim.

There is no such thing as an ex-exhibitionist.

When you're counting alibis and not apples, one plus one equals none.

Common sense is a vastly overrated virtue. I myself prefer the spark of genius.

When someone gives me three reasons instead of one, I'm inclined not to believe any of them.

I wish people would quit telling me to think. I think. Thinking's easy. It's not thinking that's hard.

And at the start of every new day, I still believed I could choose my own beginning, one that was scrubbed clean of everything past

Willpower survives.

Going home helps the content.

The only thing I want is to awaken all humans on the planet that we are living on Mother Earth.

I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. If I were to imagine heaven, I would imagine a door opening. And he would be waiting for me there.

Poor empty pants With nobody inside them.

In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.

Comedy is easy. First, people have to fall down. Next, include someone a little hefty. It's a hoot.

Most people are trying to go digital, and trying to do different things with poetry. McSweeney's is going in the opposite direction - going more classic, and retro, which is all coming back.

It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.