“Someone could walk into this room and say your life is on fire.”

“It's very helpful to start with something that's true. If you start with something that's false, you're always covering your tracks. Something simple and true, that has a lot of possibilities, is a nice way to begin.”

“Was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Not a negative word was heard.”

“These are the days of lasers in the jungle, staccato signals of constant information.”

“It's actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”

“I am never merry when I hear sweet music.”

“I say, without characters, fame lives long.”

“Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,Live regist'red upon our brazen tombsAnd then grace us in the disgrace of death;When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,Th' endeavor of this present breath may buyThat honor which shall bate his scythe's keen edgeAnd make us heirs of all eternity.”

“He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.”

“In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages, long ago betid”

“This act is an ancient tale new told;And, in the last repeating, troublesome,Being urged at a time unseasonable.”

“For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

“The soul of this man is his clothes.”

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

“If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not toalter me.”

“Pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object.”

“Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.”

“A great while ago the world begun,With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;But that's all one, our play is done,And we'll strive to please you every day.”

“I've got to tell you, the Internet is a place you go when you want to turn your brain on, and television is a place you go when you want to turn your brain off. I'm not at all convinced that the twain will meet.”

“Programs like 'Jeopardy' and 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' are ridiculous. They're the stupidest shows in history. They're making us dumber. They don't give us information, they give us facts, factoids. You don't learn who Napoleon was and how he was motivated. You learn what year he was born, and when he died. That's useless.”

“The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.”

“A young man married is a man that's marred.”

“O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.”

“Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.”