Nothing a man writes can please him as profoundly as something he does with his back, shoulders and hands. For writing is an artificial activity. It is a lonely and private substitute for conversation.
It seems to me that the thing that makes the theater worthwhile is the fact that it attracts so many people with ideas who are constantly trying to share them with the public. Real art is illumination. It gives a man an idea he never had before or lights up ideas that were formless or only lurking in the shadows of his mind. It adds stature to life.
There should be a dash of the amateur in criticism. For the amateur is a man of enthusiasm who has not settled down and is not habit bound.
The evil that men do lives on the front pages of greedy newspapers, but the good is oft interred apathetically inside.
Every man with an idea has at least two or three followers.
It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge.
The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.
This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.