Luckily, I remembered something Malcolm Cowley had taught us at Stanford - perhaps the most important lesson a writing class (not a writer, understand, but a class) can ever learn. 'Be gentle with one another's efforts,' he often admonished us. 'Be kind and considerate with your criticism. Always remember that it's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.'

You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

Plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom.

What makes people so impatient is what I can't figure; all the guy had to do was wait.

Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.

But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.