The roar of the traffic, the passage of undifferentiated faces, this way and that way, drugs me into dreams; rubs the features from faces. People might walk through me. And what is this moment of time, this particular day in which I have found myself caught? The growl of traffic might be any uproar - forest trees or the roar of wild beasts. Time has whizzed back an inch or two on its reel; our short progress has been cancelled. I think also that our bodies are in truth naked. We are only lightly covered with buttoned cloth; and beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence.
Look, history is interesting. I read three books on George Washington last year. And my opinion is that if they're still analyzing the first president, the 43rd president ought to be doing what he thinks is right. And eventually, historians will come and realize whether... the decisions I made made sense.
Conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that they are friends.
Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.
I'm always thinking, 'my career is over, I have to move back to Omaha, and work on the railroad, with the rest of my family. So no, I'm never thinking I've 'arrived.' I think that's a good way to be.
Satan (impatiently) to Newcomer: The trouble with you Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely the most numerous.
I'm sort of always trying to reinvent and recreate a better way of being, because, you know, democracy has been "the worst of all political systems except for all the rest." So I think we have a lot of room to grow and be a better society, and it's a constant battle. It's an exciting opportunity to be active.
Everyone's alone - or so it seems to me. They make noises, and think they are talking to each other; They make faces, and think they understand each other. And I'm sure they don't. Is that a delusion?
I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about our selves.
I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand -- but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low gas.'