Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen a lot of them will.

When I look back on my childhood I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life like radioactive elements.

Your home is regarded as a model home your life as a model life. But all this splendor and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come a word can be spoken and both you and all this splendor will collapse.

The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.

Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.

Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation plan carefully before making a move and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.

Billy is a funny cheeky lovely boy and I love being with him. Parenthood is terrifying though. I can barely walk past a building without panicking that it's going to collapse on his head.

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.

The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another's little lapses.