Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.

He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.

There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.

These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts.

Losing well was a gift, but winning well is this stuff of the authentic manhood.

The desolate narrowness, the definitive thinness of experience is both the vainglory and the dead giveaway of a provincial man.

It would always be my burden, not that I lacked genius, but that I was fully aware of it.

In every southerner, beneath the veneer of clichés lies a much deeper motherlode of cliché. But even cliché is overlaid with enormous power when a child is involved.

I feel bare. I didn't realize I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone and now everyone sees me as I really am.

The inevitableness the idealism and the blessing of war as an indispensable and stimulating law of development must be repeatedly emphasized.

I think that's not a question that one can answer accurately. I read a whole range of books, quite a lot of history at the time, and still do read a lot. I read very widely.

I guess I'm a very keen observer, and I'd like to think I have a good imagination.

The table was her stage. The mobile phone was the microphone. And the new moon was the spotlight. That kind of magic only Nana could make it happen.

If he isn't named footballer of the year, football should be stopped and the men who picked any other player should be sent to Kremlin. (on Tommy Smith)

It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never.

I've been hounded by a reputation of being difficult when really what I'm being is truthful and honest. And I think that's been a thorn in my side.

When it comes to civilian deaths, violent hostilities play no favorites.

More young people believe they'll see a U.F.O. than that they'll see their own Social Security benefits.