It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.

The secret is to make sure your family comes before anything else because no matter what you do you've got to come home.

The dirty little secret is that the pool man who's making $30 000 a year is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets.

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.

The higher the artist the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools the greater the imagination. The greater the will the greater the secret failure.

Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it's only kept a secret from the person who fails.

There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.

Winning is great sure but if you are really going to do something in life the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat and go on to win again you are going to be a champion someday.

There is no winning or losing but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in whether it's a fantasy game the Wild West secret agenst or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.