“I admire you, but in the end everybody talks.”

“Stories,” p. 60
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Stone and a Word”

National Book Award Acceptance Speech (1957)
Context: It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; that constitute his ideal audience and his better self. To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men. And he speaks not in private grunts and mutterings but in the public language of the dictionary, of literary tradition, and of the street. Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the products something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody.

Niven's Laws, Niven's Laws For Writers

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

On campaign economic advisor Carly Fiorina, 23 September 2008 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/23/mccain_fiorina_a_role_model.html
2000s, 2008

Source: Evermore

Source: The Princess Bride