The future is religion and commerce, aphrodisiac and Benzedrine, a mother of mysterious comfort and a mistress of familiar ravishments ever on the verge of embracing or destroying us.

We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.

Mercy is a source of life because we breathe our own spirits through it into the lives of others.

The moment an individual can accept and forgive him or herself, even a little, is the moment in which he or she becomes to some degree lovable.

The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?

Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple.

Life does not hurt nearly as much if we have learned to listen to ourselves and to recognize how fully and richly we are trying to tell ourselves the truth.

There are times when silence is the most sacred of responses.

Is childhood ever long enough, or a happy time, or even a beautiful summer day? All of these carry the seeds of the same fierce mystery that we call death.

The moment an individual can accept and forgive himself even a little is the moment in which he becomes to some degree lovable.

The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?

My mind is not so advanced

Every time I took a long leave from home, I felt as if I were going to conquer the world. Or rather, take possession of what is my birthright, my inheritance.

A mighty good sausage stuffer was spoiled when the man became a poet.

One night, in his cups, he drank a jar of wildfire, after telling his friends it would transform him into a dragon, but the gods were kind and it transformed him into a corpse.

Languages are the keys of science.

In the culture of pluralism...the only thing that cannot be tolerated is a claim to exclusivity.

Everything can happen in the playoffs.

I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.

Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that received it disclose it.

All men have one entrance into life, and the like going out.