Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.

The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.

. . .there is an element of Play that is almost ritualistic in Black folk life. It serves to mediate the tensions, stress, and pain of constant exploitation and oppression.

I worked in accounting for two and a half years, realized that wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and decided I was just going to give comedy a try.

The only everyday and eternal reality was love.

I always have to dream up there against the stars. If I don't dream I will make it, I won't even get close.

It was something that we learned more and more about as we got older in different chapters of our lives on how important the victory was, not as a sporting event but as a victory in the Cold War.

Everyone's life is an object lesson to others.

Jump for joy as we accomplish the dreams we adore.

Whenever sorrow comes, be kind to it. For God has placed a pearl in sorrow’s hand.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.