Gerald Boyd was a classic specimen of the self-made man. Born poor, he worked and studied his way up out of poverty under the guidance of his widowed grandmother.

Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through O'Hare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it.

People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.

Americans like fat books and thin women.

It is safest to shut up and pay, which is what I shall eventually do, though I shall hate having to sell the children.

When it comes to cars, only two varieties of people are possible - cowards and fools.

A man doesn't amount to something because he has been successful at a third-rate career like journalism. It is evidence, that's all: evidence that if he buckled down and worked hard, he might some day do something really worth doing.