America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.

Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.

Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse.

Aside from purely technical analysis, nothing can be said about music, except when it is bad; when it is good, one can only listen and be grateful.

If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.