“The selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter.”

Gilbert White discovered the formula for complete happiness, but he died before making the announcement, leaving it for me to do so. It is to be very busy with the unimportant.

As life tends to become more and more distracting, let us firmly hold on to books.

The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate.

Hawai’i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a ‘mixed plate’—a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi.

Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.

Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely ‘local’ cuisine.

Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God… and where can you go from there?

When you go to home plate with a lot of confidence,

And write whatever Time shall bring to pass With pens of adamant on plates of brass.

There are a number of places on marine charts where even the most weathered sailors point and say, “Right there, nothing can go wrong. Everything has to go right.”