You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

Words make another place, a place to escape to with your spirit alone.

Parents can plant magic in a child's mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice, some uplift of the heart and spirit.

The greatest luxury is being able to go to movies and plays now and then in the afternoons.

Change is legitimate and inevitable, for our language is a mighty river, picking up silt and flotsam here and discarding it there, but growing ever wider and richer.

After I became a citizen, I felt freer to say what I thought about this country, both negative and positive. I think I had been, consciously and subconsciously, biting my tongue in the past.

I am not really retired, and may never be completely, but I can't think of a better place to contemplate retirement than New York City.

Yes, after some time spent last year on other commitments, most of them speaking engagements, I am now about halfway through a novel that I hope will come out in 1998.

Wordstruck is exactly what I was—and still am: crazy about the sound of words, the look of words, the taste of words, the feeling for words on the tongue and in the mind.

Television has created a nation of news junkies who tune in every night to get their fix on the world.

I'm happy to have my own opinion and air it when I think it's necessary.

Edward: You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal? he used to say to me. A plan.

I'm back in these regions of fumbling dark uncertain creation, but it's my one and only world, and I'll do the best I can.

Only bacteria thrive and live well in a poorly cared for body.

Imagination is Reality Lite - a useful substitute when the real pleasure is inaccessible, too risky, or too much work.

It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson... even at the expense of my conscience and judgement. such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles.

There are a variety of techniques to help people change the kind of thinking that leads them to become depressed. These techniques are called cognitive behavioral therapy.

I'm just taking it one day at a time. Actually, that's a total lie. I always think about what's in front of me.

I'm really happy with my life now, but there's a lot of stuff I feel very sad about in ways I can't even control.

When you want to be close to me, listen to the music. The love is stored there and will not die.

Lasorda's standard reply when some new kid would ask directions to the whirlpool was to tell him to stick his foot in the toilet and flush it.