What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again from zero.

For a competitive junkie like me golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you have accomplished something. That to me has taken over a lot of the energy and competitiveness for basketball.

Nobody is starving on the streets. We've always taken care of them. We take care of our own we always have. It is not the government's responsibility.

President Obama's call for nearly a half-trillion dollars in more government stimulus when America has more than $14 trillion in debt is guided by his mistaken belief that we can spend our way to prosperity.

I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side and to have kept a flock of sheep rather than to have undertaken this government.

Remember that government doesn't earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government that money must first be taken from somebody else.

The nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has I believe is secure. I think the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that.

Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that's at the state local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look at some point you cease being a free economy and you become a government economy. And we've got to stop that.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess and no matter how good one's sentiments may be if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

If you lead a country like Britain a strong country a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad a country that is always reliable then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Among God's creatures two the dog and the guitar have taken all the sizes and all the shapes in order not to be separated from the man.

A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.

My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence but of those who have already taken possession of their future.

I like long walks especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.