“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.”

“Give thy thoughts no tongue.”

“What is thy sentence then but speechless death.”

“Give it an understanding, but no tongue.”

“But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness.”

“What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings.”

“Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.”

“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.”

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

“Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth.”

“How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!”

“Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state and inclination of the day.”

“This we prescribe, though no physician; Deep malice makes too deep incision; Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed; Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.”

“Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.”

“So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”

“The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves The brilliant moon and all the milky sky And all that famous harmony of leaves Had blotted out man's image and his cry.”

“I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.”

“There's keen delight in what we have:The rattle of pebbles on the shoreUnder the receding wave.”