he had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular

What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

No less than war or statecraft, the history of Economics has its heroic ages.

Thought of the incomprehensible sequence of changes and chances that make up a life, all the beauties and horrors and absurdities whose conjunctions create the uninterpretable and yet divinely significant pattern of human destiny.

I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.

Seated upon the convex mound Of one vast kidney, Jonah prays And sings his canticles and hymns, Making the hollow vault resound God's goodness and mysterious ways, Till the great fish spouts music as he swims.