Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver.
Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.
There's a whole slew of wonderful speculation of flying in a fanciful way. Gulliver is one of the central examples; Swift has the hum of Arabian Nights in his ear with Gulliver's Travels. The difference is in scale - Gulliver as a kind of Sinbad kind of figure, the way he is picked up and carried. Just to finish up with Scheherazade, I do think that The Arabian Nights could be considered as a great book on women's position in the world.
Our concept is not that America should operate alone or by itself in world affairs or in military affairs.
I'm not going to waste my time trying 'break' America, you know what I mean? Too many people have died trying to break America. America doesn't break unless it wants to.
America has the highest standard of living of any major country in the entire world. To maintain and enhance that standard of living, America should continue to embrace those qualities which have made America great: openness and dynamism. Openness to new technologies, new ideas and new people is America's greatest source of strength.
When it comes to physical strength, someone may have a stronger upper body than lower body, or a stronger right arm compared to the left arm. Similarly, we're likely to excel in some areas of mental strength while struggling with others.
I think I've thrown enough balls and put it on tape where I don't think arm strength is an issue. I wouldn't be a starting quarterback if my arm strength was such an issue. People are making it seem like I can't throw the ball 30 yards. People are getting out of hand with it.
Here, every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offense.
It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: the heart cannot actually break, it can only break open. When we feel both our love for this world and the pain of this world-together, at the same time-the heart breaks out of its shell. To live with an open heart is to experience life full-strength.
I've had affairs. But I'm not the sort of man who has 10,000 affairs.
I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.
You know, the interesting thing about having traveled around the country as much as I have, and I think it's sort of inadvertently what made me come out or at least begin doing things within the community and thinking more about that, was that I get to travel quite a bit.
There is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.
There is sort of an unspoken 'no skateboarding' clause on tour that I break pretty often.
Hello toes," I say. They're good toes. I like that they're long and slender and not the slightest bit stubby. I wiggle them, ten unstubby waves that say, "And hello to you, Human Host!" Except they're toes. I'm talking to my toes. Maybe I'm not bored... maybe I'm lonely?