The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.

Freedom is baffling: men having it often know not they have it till it is gone and they no longer have it.

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

Poetry is a sequence of dots and dashes, spelling depths, crypts, cross-lights, and moon wisps.

Time is the coin of life. Only you can determine how it will be spent.

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes.

So I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.