The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

America, meaning mostly the United States, is not an easy concept to comprehend. It may be appropriate that it was discovered by a Genoese sailor, in the service of the Spanish crown, looking for some place else and...

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Somerset Maugham, The New York Times Book Review, September 30, 1984

Jean Paul Sartre says in “No Exit” that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth. Alan Alda, GQ, Summer, 1980

We can begin by noting that the body prefers to keep itself alive. John Tierney, Esquire, August 1981

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-ight drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen. John...

Dreaming permits every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. William Dement, Forbes Magazine, April 6, 1998

What a beautiful morning. John Hancock, to Sam Adams at the Battle of Lexington