An expert is somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides.

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.

Prince Wen-hui's cook, Ting, was cutting up an ox. Every touch of his hand, every ripple of his shoulders, every step of his feet, every thrust of his knees, every cut of his knife, was in perfect harmony, like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the chords of the Lynx Head music. Well done! said the prince. How did you gain such skill? Putting down his knife, Ting said, I follow the Tao, Your Highness, which goes beyond all skills. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox. After three years, I had learned to look beyond the ox. Nowadays I see with my whole being, not with my eyes. I sense the natural lines, and my knife slides through by itself, never touching a joint, much less a bone. A good cook changes knives once a year: he cuts. An ordinary cook changes knives once a month: he hacks. This knife of mine has lasted for nineteen years; it has cut up thousands of oxen, but its blade is as sharp as if it were new. Between the joints there are spaces, and the blade has no thickness. Having no thickness, it slips right through; there's more than enough room for it. And when I come to a difficult part, I slow down, I focus my attention, I barely move, the knife finds its way, until suddenly the flesh falls apart on its own. I stand there and let the joy of the work fill me. Then I wipe the blade clean and put it away. Bravo! cried the prince. From the words of this cook, I have learned how to live my life.

The mountains are great stone bells; they clang together like nuns. Who shushed the stars? There are a thousand million galaxies easily seen in the Palomar reflector; collisions between and among them do, of course, occur. But these collisions are very long and silent slides. Billions of stars sift amont each other untouched, too distant even to be moved, heedless as always, hushed. The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. But God knows I have tried.

Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides peace and prosperity for eight blessed years - and even a third term for his feckless vice president George H.W. Bush.

A true man never frets about his place in the world but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature and swings there as easily as a star.

It was a great experience for a kid because it was a bunch of kids playing on pirate ships and water slides so looking back on it it was the fondest experience of my childhood.

My fear is that I go up to the girl of my dreams and say 'I'm sorry but I've got to say hello to you ' and she slides the stool back and gets up and walks away saying 'Not for me Bub. I don't want anything to do with you.'

What I've discovered is that in art as in music there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.