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What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself — life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

Willa Cather

Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.

Groucho Marx

Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks — chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.

Fran Lebowitz

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

George Orwell

At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.

Jane Wagner

An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished equation.

Mary McCarthy

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.

Robert M. Pirsig

This was the dawn of plastic eating in America. . . . We doted on Velveeta. Spam. Canned ravioli. Instant puddings. Instant anything. The farther a thing was from the texture, flavor, and terrifying unpredictability of real food, the better.

Shirley Abbott

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

Jeannette Rankin

Who has not sat before his own heart’s curtain? It lifts, and the scenery is falling apart.

Rainer Maria Rilke