I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age - which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up even in advanced age as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

In this age which believes that there is a short cut to everything the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is in the long run the easiest.

Before anything else we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth justice freedom and reason.

Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.

Do you remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and you really thought your folks were the best? They were completely omniscient and you took their word for everything. And then you got older and you went through this hideous age when suddenly they were the devil they were bullies and they didn't know anything.

I cried on my 18th birthday. I thought 17 was such a nice age. You're young enough to get away with things but you're old enough too.

And in my own life in my own small way I've tried to give back to this country that has given me so much. That's why I left a job at a law firm for a career in public service working to empower young people to volunteer in their communities. Because I believe that each of us - no matter what our age or background or walk of life - each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long and the age of the great epics is past.