Someone once told me the one thread that runs through them all is a premium on personal courage - not intellectual courage, but just plain physical courage.

Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.

Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.

Events alone rarely provide much guide to the future.

It's a funny thing, but today the Titanic is probably much more - that is people are much more aware of it than they were in 1954, when I was doing my research.

I look for something that is highly unusual, involving ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.

The ones that measure up are not always the ones you expect.

I never earned a dollar that was not somehow through writing.

There were exceptions, a couple of families that just plain didn't want to even think about it, although forty years had passed but mostly the people were very interested in talking about it.

It's in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.

Sometimes is necessary to fall from grace to teach indecent.

If the people you talk to on a daily basis are not the ones living your life dealing with your daily obstacles, are not uplifting for your well being then why should you buy into their opinion?

You have two choices: To live an unconscious life, or to be conscious of your magnificence...

You are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Someday the sun is going to shine down on me in some faraway place.

Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.

We can appreciate each other's languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.

I never really wanted to be a singer - not with any longevity. But I always wanted to be a writer.

I like doing business in a black city.