"We are born among relatives. Family is defined by loyalty."

"It made him wonder if all things taken from their home too soon lost some of their bloom."

"Human thought and human caring go on in one brain and one heart at a time. Groups are necessary. Regulations are necessary. Government, I would hope limited government, is necessary. But it all starts with the individual. Everything that is accomplished starts with one person, even if the group steps in and helps; it's still one brain and one heart at a time."

"It's as close to true freedom as I have come. Not freedom of, but freedom from; freedom from the debris of life that piles up and forces us to dig and dig for our original self, who we were once upon a time, innocent and wonderfully naA ve, as authentically pure as a human can be."

"Back home. What wonderful words. What a wonderful place."

"A hopeful journey is more important than the destination."

"As an adult I had mastered the art of looking without seeing and listening without hearing and eating without tasting and maybe even existing without living."

"A person gets built and stands for a few years and then nature's demolition team comes in."

"In this country our principles should not be silent."

"If all you do is think about what you need, you're no better than an animal in the woods, and no smarter either. To be human, you've got to want. It makes you smarter and stronger."

"There is no end to the hatred in men, but there is an end to the hatred in a man. If your hatred is just, and deeds will get you to the end of it, then go and do what must be done."

"What a wonderful sadness to miss the one you have loved forever, it seems, and know that she is waiting at home."

"I am not wise enough to know if there is ever purpose in tragedy, if there is ever virtue in resisting it. If it cannot be overcome, then grief has beaten you, and you are right to say so."

"Music is the sound of unspoken thoughts."

"He knew most men only heard what they wanted to hear, and he had no desire to be like most men."

"Evil stinks and it doesn't disappear just because you want it to. You can still smell it with your eyes closed."

"Politics is all about dividing up the power. Washington D.C. likes to talk about spreading the wealth, but never spreading the power."

"Some people get what they want because they grab the power and swing it, and some people don't."

"Seek until there is no hope and then seek further. Seek without end. Trudge on without tiring and without fear and without disheartenment. Trudge on, for it is within you to fight any enemy. It is who you are. It is your past and your present and your future. You will not quit. You cannot quit. Your breath is your courage, and as you breathe, so must you hope or you are already dead."

"Surviving is about need. Living is about want."

"Sometimes, you need to spit stuff out in words to get it better arranged in your head. I figure if you never talk about it, it just picks its own spot and lays there and festers."

"People don't die so the universe can gauge your reaction. They die because life is finite."

"Hope was always hard to find in the darkness."

"As I have aged, I've been lucky never to reach old. Old is always at least five or ten years beyond my current calendar stage."

"The bones of the oak tree that had stood by the spring branch during my youth were scattered about the ground, pieces of the skeleton of a majestic life that had passed while I was off growing up and old."

"He had no ability to give up. It wasn't that he didn't want to quit, he couldn't. It wasn't in him. It never had been."

"Responsibility is definitely not something you feel, it is something you wear."

"It seems to me that smart people seem to know things and wise people know how to use what they know. Smart is a big help to a man, wise is a big help to lots of men."

"Does the plain, simple beauty of life get buried under society's so-called required daily activities or is that just true of me? No, I know I'm not alone in that feeling. We all get caught up in the making and spending of money. I know it's not just me."

"Now, it's time for me to lock up and go. Listen to me. Lock up an empty building that's gonna be torn down. Makes no sense. Like an old man tellin' a lie to his son from his death bed. What's the point? Who besides yourself are you fooling?"

"Our bird of hope was being denied the altitude it sought, just free enough to fly dangerously close to the reality of the treetops."

"Everybody dies. It's no risk to lose your life. You knew it was lost from the beginning."

"I assumed that looking back reminded older guys of what they had shot at and missed, the what-ifs, the good memories, the bad, the people left behind, the people who moved on."

"There's nothing wrong with fighting when you have no choice. As a matter of fact, it's what you should do, but when you fight, fight to win."

"A silence overtook the odd family in their odd surroundings as loss became the mockery of the moment, and they were caught up in the emotional release that is common in a theater audience after the sudden ending of a tragic movie; the curtain closes and the people are still in their seats, numb and sighing their way back into reality."

"Books required no interchanges of thoughts and feelings, no trading of expectations, no traffic of words, no menace of real loss. Reading books required far less energy than reading people; the pages seldom disappointed him and they never died."