The bee himself did not evade the schoolboy more than she evaded me, and even at this day I still stand somewhat bewildered, like the boy.

The first wild-flower of the year is like land after sea.

To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.

It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,--a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury, or make one's children rich.

There is certainly no defence or water -proof garment against adverse fortune which is, on the whole, so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.

Your ability to learn from the experiences of other successful people is one of your most important habits that will give you the best chance of success.

Make that: no one I ever wanted to kiss wanted to kiss a fat girl.

To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

I'm not good at happy, lightweight kind of music. I'm not really good at pop music. "Cars" is probably the only true pop song I ever wrote. I wish I could write more, but I'm not very good at it.

A mother beyond compare Have a lovely day Mom

Love is a complicated path, and that path can lead us up to heaven or hurl us down into hell.

I liked the idea of being an actress, but thought better of it.

Freedom of expression is not absolute. Countries have laws that define the framework for exercising this right and which, for instance, condemn racist language.