Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own.

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

Democrats must rally behind a low-rate, broad-based tax system that is fair, simple and efficient.

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'

The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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

I feel very blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children who keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real.