The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow.

...while a sane world would not employ 5-foot-tall grandmothers as law enforcement officers, a sane world would also not give full body-cavity searches to 5-foot-tall grandmothers at airports.

I am slow. A sentence often takes an hour to compose before I throw it out. What can you do?

Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow.

The rain forest has Sting. Now Siberia has Jack Dee. Someone had to draw the short straw. In this case it was the rain forest.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You've got to just stand there and take it.

Flatter me, but delicately, please, for I am fastidious.

I decided to be the best and the smartest.

I am as confounded by dogs as I am indebted to them.

When I was first published it was like having people rushing in coming to find out where I was hiding. Scary!