there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.

The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Why does everyone think that I am a cruel and insensitive man? I mean, come on, I have kids... on my desk in little jars!

I don't want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

Life turns on a dime.