The book, like the bicycle, is a perfect form.

Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.

If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real.

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.

If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

We have denounced in all assemblies, in all places where we have had the opportunity to speak, the illegality of flights and the fact that there is a base against the will of the Cuban people.

I wonder how biology can explain the physical pain you feel in your chest when all you want to do is be with someone.

Confidence is a lot of this game or any game. If you don't think you can, you won't.

The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.

That's what I love about music...all these banalities suddenly turn into these beautiful, effervescent pearls.

Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.

Don't think about what you’ll tell people afterward. The time is here and now. Make the most of it.

Today, you're halfway to 100! Here's to optimism, whether it is realistic or not. Happy 50th birthday!

Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated.

Lower your gaze from the world and turn your heart away from it...