In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?
I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse.
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
It is not much for its beauty that makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty.
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness.
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.