The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

It doesn't happen to me anymore, because a fresh generation of Africans and Asians has arisen to take over the business, but in my early years in Washington, D.C., I would often find myself in the back of a big beat-up old cab driven by an African-American veteran. I became used to the formalities of the : on some hot and drowsy Dixie-like afternoon I would flag down a flaking Chevy. Behind the wheel, leaning wa-aay back and relaxed, often with a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth (and, I am not making this up, but sometimes also with a genuine porkpie hat on the back of his head) would be a grizzled man with the waist of his pants somewhere up around his armpits. I would state my desired destination. In accordance with ancient cabdriver custom, he would say nothing inresponse but simply engage the stickshift on his steering wheel and begin to cruise in a leisurely fashion. There would be a pause. Then: 'You from England?' I would always try to say something along the lines of 'Well, I'm in no position to deny it.' This occasionally got me a grin; in any case, I always knew what was coming next. 'I was there once.' 'Were you in the service?' 'I sure was.' 'Did you get to Normandy?' 'Yes, sir.' But it wasn't Normandy or combat about which they wanted to reminisce. (With real combat veterans, by the way, it almost never is.) It was England itself. 'Man did it know how to rain and the warm beer. Nice people, though. Real nice.' I would never forget to say, as I got out and deliberately didn't overtip (that seeming a cheap thing to do), how much this effort on their part was remembered and appreciated.

Christopher Hitchens

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb.And when the earth shal claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

W. Somerset Maugham

There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.

John Green

When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man's soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances.

Thomas Carlyle

You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.

Arthur Ashe

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

Thomas Carlyle

Though the people support the government the government should not support the people.

Grover Cleveland

Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of my most sentimental items is my grandmother's engagement ring that my mom gave me a few years ago. It's a Victorian-style setting that's closed in the back, so it doesn't sparkle the way diamonds do now. I wear it as a pendant.

Georgina Chapman

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones

He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.

Tacitus