“Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.”

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.

Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.

For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love.

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

The worst of all listeners is the man who does nothing but listen.

I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.

I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.

We can refute assertions, but who can refute silence?

One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.

There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.

I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.

We spend a lot of time trying to keep all that stuff very private. In this day in age, it’s impossible. It’s out in the ether and people send stuff to my house all the time. People show up at my house sometimes.

Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.

But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn’t do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs – Early Days – which is what it is – and Latter Days.

Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore.

That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point – an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances.