Maybe it's true that we are all descended from the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers and brawlers, but also the brave and independent and generous. If our ancestors had not been that, they would have stayed in their home plots in the other world and starved over the squeezed-out soil.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge intime, toprotest againstchange, particularlychangefor the better.

You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff

And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.

'He's got a can up there,' Richard said.