“I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Köln there was never a knight
Had a merrier life than mine.”

Parade interview (2009)
Context: I have to fight every single day to live my true life. I don't ever want to come home saying, "I should have spoken my mind. I shouldn't have let someone say something that I didn't feel was right." … [But] I have to remember that there's a balance. I'm in the entertainment business. We're here to entertain people, to make them laugh and forget.

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Prelude, Stanza 1.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976)
Context: I set an example. That's all anyone can do. I'm sorry the cowgirls didn't pay better attention, but I couldn't force them to notice me. I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid. They're waiting for that; they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it's fairly easy to do all three. If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.

Coping with Cristiano Ronaldo, Phil Gordos, 2008-03-31, 2008-03-31, BBC News http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7315069.stm,

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

On the fate of his friend Lion Nordheim, who was executed ten days before the end of the war, and his own release at around the same time, p. 52
To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue (2000)
Context: On the day we were caught, Lion and I had been talking about writing a memorandum on the fate of the Jewish war children living in hiding or among Dutch families … we were the representatives of the Zionist youth organization. … Lion who had been taking notes of the discussion, put these papers in his jacket pocket when he took a break from lunch. When the Germans caught us they discovered his notes. If those papers had been in my pocket I would have never lived to be seventy. I have led a strange life, a set of complete coincidences.

Source: Atlas Shrugged