The enemy has assailed my outposts in heavy force. I have fallen back on the line of Bull Run and will make a stand at Mitchell's Ford.

The curse of God must have been on our people when we chose him out of so many noble sons of the South, who would have carried us safely through this Revolution.

Now, gentlemen, let tomorrow be their Waterloo!

That living specimen of gall and hatred, that individual.

He suddenly saw the enterprise of literature as essentially mad.

Original sin is a very commercial idea, ” said Duyckinck. “How do you think the Bible stays in print year after year?

Melville to Hawthorne: "In your stories, you seem to understand that the dramatic moments come not when a character must choose between right and wrong buy when he must choose between two wrongs.

Destroying oneself, he thought ruefully, should always be done at a deliberate pace.

Do anything, save to lie down and die!

Banality is a terribly likely consequence of the underuse of a good mind.

If you remember the ‘90s, you weren’t there.

For me, all of the data that is contained in your cell memory, and in your energetic field, is able to be picked up.

We are all stronger, smarter, talented, beautiful, and more resilient than we were told.

We'll hold out our hand; they have to unclench their fist.

Portray the world for what it is, and you will find truth.

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

It's obvious that they're going to want Ali's daughter and Frazier's daughter to fight it out.