There are people who have a penchant for cities-more than that, a talent for them, a gift of sensing them, of feeling their rhythm and pulsebeats, as others have a highly developed music sense, or color reaction. It is a thing that cannot be acquired.

The goat's business is none of the sheep's concern.

People permit life to slide past them like a deft pickpocket, their purse-not yet missed and now too late-in his hand.

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!

A placated bully is a hand-fed bully.

It's terrible to realize that you don't learn how to live until you're ready to die; and, then it's too late.

You lose in the end unless you know how the wheel is fixed or can fix it yourself.