Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh. I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love.

mercy, I think, doesn't the human race know anything about mercy?

I didn't feel that way about it. I had been playing with death for some time. I can't say we were the best of friends but we were well acquainted.

I am not a man who looks for solutions in God or politics. If somebody else wants to do the dirty work and create a better world for us and he can do it, I will accept it.

There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken with fear. They fear failure so much that they fail. They are too conditioned, too used to being told what to do. It begins with the family, runs through school and goes into the business world.

I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one.

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.