When Bird came on the scene, it was just as shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark, and then the light appeared for the first time.
Professors simply can't discuss a thing. Habit compels them to deliver a lecture.
What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else.
Memory is the best of all gardens. Therein, winter and summer, the seeds of their past lie dormant, ready to spring into instant bloom at any moment the mind wishes to bring them to life.
The cocktail party has a simple function in modern society. Its basic purpose is to pay off social debts.
Those who give up cigarette smoking aren't the heroes. The real heroes are the rest of us - who have to listen to them.
I used to envy kids who had an old-fashioned Grandpa. Not any more. I've got a new ambition. Now I just want to become a modern-type Grandpa myself-and really start living.
You are mine-you know you're mine!" he cried wildly. . . the moonlight twisted in through the vines and listened. . . the fireflies hung upon their whispers as if to win his glance from the glory of their eyes.
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
I think people need something to believe in, because they don't want to have control over their own lives. They'd rather be able to blame it on an unknown being, or a greater god, or a greater spirit of sorts. And I think it's easier for them to blame it on that.
A new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.