Probably the most honest "self-made person" ever was the one we heard say: "I got to the top the hard way - fighting my own laziness and ignorance every step of the way."

Whether a character in your novel is full of choler, bile, phlegm, blood or plain old buffalo chips, the fire of life is in there, too, as long as that character lives.

Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don’t think of until too late.

We pick bygone time up by the handfuls and, like clay, see if it feels right and then form it into stories about the past.

For every time we regret keeping still, there are about ten times we regret speaking up.

Too often we seek justice for just us.

you come to understand that history might be, as Thomas Carlyle put it, “a distillation of rumor, ” or, as Napoleon said, “a set of lies generally agreed upon

When you've been going on about something for a while, it is always satisfying to discover that other people agree with you.

My tactic is to make eyes at someone.

It was only high school after all, definitely one of the most bizarre periods in a person's life. How anyone can come through that time well adjusted on any level is an absolute miracle.

Momentum is whatever your attitude determines it to be.

Anxiety is a deep conscious breath away from dissolving.

Real giving is when we give to our spouses what's important to them, whether we understand it, like it, agree with it, or not.

Wherever there is water there is someone drowning.

I actually enjoy the pain. That's what gives me the fire inside to get up and keep going.

Don't try to follow any trends, just concentrate on writing great songs and knowing your instrument. All the other stuff will fall into place.

I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill