The bubbly play of wit, the chesty laughs, the resonant voices of men when glass in hand they shut the grey world outside and prod their brains with the fun and folly of an accelerated pulse.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage.

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course, to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all.

The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.

There's only one way to make a beginning, and that is to begin; and begin with hard work, and patience, prepared for all the disappoint­ment s.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

He left his footprints burnt into my heart.

Courage is a strong will.

For gypsies do not like to stay -They only come to go away.

As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence.

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

Families are the compass that guide us.

A garden scheme should have a backbone - a central idea beautifully phrased.

The US health-care system is a complete scandal. It's got twice the costs of comparable countries and some of the worst outcomes.

The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all.

Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of a man's life.