A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once. - William Faulkner

When something is new and hard and bright, there ought to be something a little better for it than just being safe, since the safe things are just the things that folks have been doing so long they have worn the edges off and there's nothing to the doing of them that leaves a man to say, That was not done before and it cannot be done again.

I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue...

That's what they mean by the love that passeth understanding: that pride, that furious desire to hide that abject nakedness which we bring here with us, carry with us into operating rooms, carry stubbornly and furiously with us into the earth again.