We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

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.

This morning, I see the lead in my glass tumbler. A slim, bright glint, a silverfish. I feel it collecting in my blood, papercutting the lining of my veins.

No one teaches you how to be a famous person no one teaches you how to be a role model. It's something you have to do on your own.

I know every fight could be my last fight, and if that happens, that's not just a health issue, but I'll be knocked off that king's stool.

Marriage with love is entering heaven with one's eyes shut, but marriage without love is entering hell with them open.

Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror.

One does not greet the Queen of the Seelie Court with the barbarous human 'hello'.

Kids can and are a blessing. But plenty of people without kids live and die just as happy.

We are never allowed to forget that some books are badly written; we should remember that sometimes they're badly read, too.

I suppose with so many things suddenly getting better, the things that were still missing hurt even worse.

If history moves forward, knowledge of it travels backwards, so that in writing of our own recent past we are continually meeting ourselves coming the other way.