The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.
I have brought many artifacts back with me from the steppe. My favourite is a 90-year-old Kazakh saddle decorated with silverwork in traditional motifs. It symbolises the deep relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian Steppe.
Taking up magic was a distraction from my sexuality. There is that 1970s cliche of the gay man as hairdresser, interior decorator, fashionista... and all of those things are about arranging surfaces in a very dazzling way - and magic is all about how you arrange surfaces. I got very good at deflecting people from things I didn't want them to see.
I write novels about women, except for one: 'Rococo', about a man, a New Jersey decorator. But even that book had a woman on the cover.
The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me.
One hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the Spanish government issued a decree authorizing the enslavement of the American Indian as in accord with the law of God and man.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
I was an insecure young man. So my need for total dedication from the people I was working with was very great. Those things were tempered as time passed by.
Deem no man happy until he passes the end of his life without suffering grief.
I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me.
I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.
As we celebrate President Reagan's remarkable career and historic legacy, we also celebrate a man of strong character, deep conviction, unforgettable charm, and wonderful wit.
With two thousand years of Christianity behind him... a man can't see a regiment of soldiers march past without going off the deep end. It starts off far too many ideas in his head.
Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric. Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.
I understand lost love, and I think that can destroy a man more than anything if it was a deep love that is lost somehow.
I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought, 'Geez, this is ridiculous.' You just see through all that sort of stuff. I never liked those Deep Purples or those sort of things. I always hated it. I always thought it was a poor man's Led Zeppelin.
Am I the man who killed Deep Purple? I don't think so. I think every band from that era, even if you look at Led Zeppelin, if you look at their first four albums, they're extremely different from one another, and I've never made the same album twice.
It is indeed fitting for me to make a comment to the effect that it takes a village to raise a child because I have lived in many villages down in deep south, and everyone there who played a part in my stewardship as a young man growing up and as a professional, they have given me unstinting support.
Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.
