«The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.»

«Yes, I heard my people singing!--in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews--and my soul was filled with their harmonies. Then, too, I heard these songs in the very sermons of my father, for in the Negro's speech there is much of the phrasing and rhythms of folk-song. The great, soaring gospels we love are merely sermons that are sung; and as we thrill to such gifted gospel singers as Mahalia Jackson, we hear the rhythmic eloquence of our preachers, so many of whom, like my father, are masters of poetic speech.»

«When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.»

«The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it.»

«The sounds I had heard seemed worthy to mingle with this bright and perfumed atmosphere, and to thrill the beautiful scenery around me.»

«The thrill is in the chase, not the quarry»

«Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge»