We had made the error of staying small – and there is no more unforgivable crime in America.

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.

He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.

There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.

These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

Losing well was a gift, but winning well is this stuff of the authentic manhood.

The desolate narrowness, the definitive thinness of experience is both the vainglory and the dead giveaway of a provincial man.

It would always be my burden, not that I lacked genius, but that I was fully aware of it.

Never give a conscious meaning to your unconscious acts!

Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

So many women keep their anger inside and let it build until they explode and then people blow them off again.

Imagination is a powerful deceiver.

It is a curse, being blessed with so much to offer.

Skepticism is a discipline fit to purify the mind of prejudice and render it all the more apt, when the time comes, to believe and to act wisely.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

I know how hard it can be to communicate in a different country, find your way around, and deal with the mentality of other people and different cultures.

Emacs is a nice operating system, but I prefer UNIX.

Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens.