People who praise illness as bringing out the best in people ought to have their heads examined. Pain forces you to think about yourself, directs your interest to your own body and what is happening to it. You don't reach out benevolently, filled with good will for others. You don't seem to care enough. Pain makes you a little person, not a big one, and not a nice one, except perhaps in the case of saints, and I've never known one.

gossip is just the small change of conversation.

It's easy to respond to the hate cries, usually carefully wrapped up in a flag. Perhaps hate is the greatest simplifier of them all. It's the man with the throb in his voice, the man with the easy formula, the man who tries to shout to my emotions instead of speaking to my mind, the man who is sure he is right that I run from like hell.

What seems most likely is generally true.

I always feel sorry for people who think more about a rainy day ahead than sunshine today.

a fair degree of literacy of speech ... is increasingly rare in politicians and not necessarily regarded as an asset.

People who care nothing about money probably exist or we wouldn't hear so much about them. But I've never encountered one in the flesh.