The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.

Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Problems are there to be solved. How dull life would be without them.

I could do what a lot of people are doing and that's sign the best Nicaraguan fighters and then sell them to Don King, but there's no way I'll do that.

I don't feel that because I'm First Lady, I'm very different from what I was before. It can happen to anyone. After all, it has happened to anyone.

At some point in time it will be right for me to step aside. That may be after this year, but that may be after two or three more years.

I've tried lots with my hair. Obviously I used to have it as a number one all over, super easy, but then I started to grow it out. I had an afro and then I got rid of the sides.

HIV/AIDS has been a big epidemic for my generation, it's been around for as long as I've been alive.

Plain fresh bread, its crust shatteringly crisp. Sweet cold butter. There is magic in the way they come together in your mouth to make a single perfect bite.

Ten million dollars after I'd become a star I was deeply in debt.

I suspect this is all gonna end in screaming and drowning

Never lose the groove to find a note.