“Does one ever read a politician’s books?”

Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life, a right action is consideration for the welfare of others.

The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.

Gossip is conversation about people.

Corporations must pay tax.

Primarily, I am a prose writer with axes to grind, and the theatre is a good place to do the grinding in. I prefer comedy to ‘serious’ drama because I believe one can get the ax sharper on the comedic stone.

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead.

He who is last had best laugh.

The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven’t seen them since.

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.

What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?

What I like least about myself is my belligerence.

I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased behaving like Nazis, no comparison would come to mind.

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

I am only at home in the present.

No law can possibly meet the convenience of every one: we must be satisfied if it be beneficial on the whole and to the majority.

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy

The entire world shall be populous with that action which saves one soul from despair.

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.

A female salmon lays three thousand eggs a year – and has yet to receive a Mother’s Day card from one of them.

The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.

When one door closes, another opens.’ Yet, in-between lies a wait persuasive enough to make many go through windows.