Revenge is the concern of those who are at some point or other beaten. I am not beaten, I told myself. No, not beaten. And victory is far more interesting to contemplate than revenge.

I'm speaking of the character of human beings, not what they believe in. I'm speaking of those who won't accept a useless life just because they were born to it. I mean those who would be something better. They work, they sacrifice, they do things..." He was moved by this, and I was a little surprised that I'd said it. Yet I felt I'd had hurt him somehow. "There is blessedness in that." I said. "There's sanctity. And God or no God, there is goodness in it. I know this the way I know the mountains are out there, that the stars shine.

Something in me was responding now as the audience responded, not in fear, but in some human way, to the magic of that fragile painted set, the mystery of the lighted world there.

A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.

Heaven would be Hell in no time if every cruel, selfish, vicious soul went to Heaven.

I had wanted to say that my song was far too painful to sing.

The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty's dead.