“Escapism sold books, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were sold by exposing Americas flaws and making the average American reader (and book club member) look closely at his or her most cherish...”

“Lee was a born pedagogue, never happier than when his children were learning to do something the right way. It is a testament to Lee's affection and patience that his children did not rebel. In fac...”

“Cats don't think they're owned by anybody. Even behind doors and windows, like amiable Wally, they're free. Always. That may, in fact, be the most important thing about them.”

“Never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully and imaginatively for its hidden assets.”

“This is true enough, but success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can't be happy as a success, it's very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure.”

“The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt ...”

“Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It ...”

“In pleasant peace and security How suddenly the soul in a man begins to die He shall look up above the stalled oxen Envying the cruel falcon, And dig under the straw for a stone To bruise himself on.”

“It is amazing, though, what pains your subconscious will undergo in achieve sustainable peace.”

“War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up some failure on the part of the adults.”

“War is the echo that never dies. No society strives for war, they are always tricked into it.”

“How can our words ever truly be our own? Since we started growing all we've been taught is to care how we represent our persona and how we should communicate appropriately and how we portrait ourse...”

“London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has n...”

“Humiliating events have a way of capturing the public's imagination. So it has been since antiquity, when gladiators were pitted against each other and the legions of Spartacus were crucified in en...”

“When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.”