The excellency of every art is its intensity capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

Even at the United Nations where legend has it that the building was designed so that there could be no corner offices the expanse of glass in individual offices is said to be a dead giveaway as to rank. Five windows are excellent one window not so great.

What starts the process really are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence personal gut performance.

My older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player. By the time he was 12 he was playing around Kansas City in classical situations. He was already an amazing talent.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry in painting and in music.

Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.