A truly successful person knows how to overcome the past, use the present, and prepare for the future-but unless we can first surmount the past, we cannot effectively cope with either the present or the future.

Somebody who never got over the embarrassing fact that he was born in bed with a lady.

We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.

Norbert Blei is a writer the way people used to be troubadours and minstrels, celebrating what he has seen and heart and felt in a deceptively simple style reminiscent of the early Sherwood Anderson. . . . Like Anderson, he is a lover, and his affection invests his writing with a singular charm.

Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.

Just about the only interruption we don't object to is applause.