Writing is a solitary occupation. Family friends and society are the natural enemies of a writer. He must be alone uninterrupted and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

She looked not so much composed as drawn inward. She was one of those people who are irrevocably, incurably honest and therefore both inflexible and vulnerable at the same time.

Blessed be he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.

I will learn, the opportunity will come.

I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well. I can't believe that we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been.

There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.

I have... submitted the resignation of the government, and I have declared that I will not be a candidate to head the (next) government.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

Pigpen was and is now forever one of the Grateful Dead.

Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.

There is nothing destroyed by sanctification but that which would destroy us.