If you were born to be a nail, you had to be hammered.

The world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing, and that thing was: story.

Words are the only bread we can really share.

Laughter is a virus that infects you with humanity.

Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old.

Everybody knew that being dead could put you in a terrible mood.

Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.

Is it a crime to want to be good? she cried

Our power comes from the earth

I am in the earth and the earth is in me

They breathed. They felt their lungs fill the sky, and they let the dark clouds inside them flow out. Then they connected to the earth.

Why should any guy want to be only friends with a girl? It’s like agreeing to be near a chocolate cake and never eat it. It’s like sitting in a racing car but not driving it.

She was another gift, surely, to us all. She was a happiness that made me cry.

Mostly I've never let record companies become involved with my music, which was a very smart thing that my first manager Dave Robinson did, to keep them out of it.

One who is constantly resting within himself is capable of endless activity.

The day is done. I'm having fun. I think I'm dumb. Or maybe just happy.

I want now to be of today. It is painful to be conscious of two worlds. The Wandering Jew in me seeks forgetfulness.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

Barack Obama's strategy is to get away from anything having to do with race as quickly as he can. His fear is that that might open a Pandora's Box.

The French - cheese-eating surrender monkeys. The Germans - schnitzel snarfing stormtrooper spawn.

Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.