The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.

African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.

The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.

Truthfulness is a cornerstone in character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.

Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.

Governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.

Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.

All we ask is to be let alone.

Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.

A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.

Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.

The transformation of a nation is impossible without God's grace.

You have to put your own oxygen mask before you put on others... It's a good metaphor for parenting

...as bad as it is here, it's better than being somewhere else." -Chris Rose, regarding life in Post-Katrina New Orleans

In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born.

My genre-hopping has caused problems with marketing and sales departments over the years, because they need to know where to position a book with the booksellers.

Boredom is my worst enemy. It's killed a lot of my friends, but it won't get me. When I get bored, I go risk my life somewhere.

Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and above all others, the most useful.

Ah, there are no children nowadays.

I firmly believe that none of us in this world have made it until the least among us have made it.

I was Mayor of New York during a great Yankees dynasty. I got to preside over the city during four Yankees championships.