“Well, did anything interesting happen today?' [my father] would begin. And even before the daily question was completed I had eagerly launched into my narrative of every play, and almost every pitc...”

“As a nation, we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now practically read it all men are created equal, except negroes. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read all men are...”

“If he could not go out into the world, the world could come to him.”

“Go ahead, and fear not. You will have a full library at your service.”

“We have the right to demand that if we find men against whom there is not only suspicion, but almost a certainty that they have had collusion with men whose interests were in conflict with the inte...”

“I hope to stand firm enough not to go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.”

“Llarimar had told him to do his best. That sounded like an awful lot of work. Unfortunately, doing nothing was beginning to seem like even MORE work.”

“In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all.”

“There was a sergeant at a desk. I knew he was a sergeant because I recognized the marks on his uniform, and I knew it was a desk because it's always a desk. There's always someone at a desk, except...”

“Most men either compromise or drop their greatest talents and start running after, what they perceive to be, a more reasonable success, and somewhere in between they end up with a discontented sett...”

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?”

“Most people have fear to compromise with life.You got to take the reins of your life in your own hands, and direct it yourself.You decide how you use your time.”

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.”

“See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-na...”

“As long as your ideas of what's possible are limited by what's actual, no other idea has a chance.”