“Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t ever do anything that is going to hurt her husband. She tries things out on him. She gets permission to do things.”

I expect them to tell me things about myself I don’t know.

A symbol of the eternity that preceded human thought, a free fire, a gift from heaven, a living sign of the elements unnoticed by the world-weary pedestrian, a fire in the ditches of Prague warming the wanderer’s eye and soul.

Because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain.

It’s interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.

Because when I read, I don’t really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.

The man upstairs is pushing the buttons, and if your name happens to be on that button, well, thank you.

On a sea floor that looks like a sandy mud bottom, that at first glance might appear to be sand and mud, when you look closely and sit there as I do for a while and just wait, all sorts of creatures show themselves, with little heads popping out of the sand. It is a metropolis.

Maybe I’ll make a huge color tapestry from my belly button lint.

I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button

After all those years of doing remote detonations, where we just push a button and something explodes, to actually see a nice big fat line of black smoke heading toward something that will blow up is very satisfying.

And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.

Decide that you are no longer be a button that can easily be pushed to react.  

We live in a world where people can ridicule you at the push of the button. They can question you at the push of a button.