Forgive me....I called you an idiot. I spoke too hastily. You are not. Had I given it more thought, I would have called you a scoundrel.

A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.

Behind one truth there is always yet another.

The dear girl, I fear, may be contemplating some alarming, disruptive perhaps dangerous project. In which case, I would naturally do all in my power to keep her from any such rash or foolhardy enterprise – unless she wished me to accompany her.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army.

The point is not to look back, but to look ahead to what you hope still to do.