In an underdeveloped country don't drink the water. In a developed country don't breathe the air.

Every White House has had its intellectuals, but very few presidents have been intellectuals themselves - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, the list more or less stops there.

Books admitted me to their world open-handedly, as people for their most part, did not. The life I lived in books was one of ease and freedom, worldly wisdom, glitter, dash and style.

Seattle is this curious liberal island.

I ain't sleeping. I'm just taking a good look at the insides of my eyelids.

When I want an opinion, I'll get it from my peers - from men of vision, like our great railroad builders... Stanford, Huntington, Dinsmore... fellows with imaginations broad enough to span the continent.

Trouble defies the law of gravity. It's easier to pick up than to drop.