Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.... Accepting another person's gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.

[Edinburgh] is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; weve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.

Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?

Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.

I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.