“A Johnson honours his obligations. His word is good and he is a good man to do business with. A Johnson minds his own business. He is not a snoopy self-righteous trouble-making person. A Johnson will give help when neeeded.”

“You might notice I refer to my son Ben as Ben Young all the time. Larry (Johnson) always called his son Ben Johnson. I liked the pride with which he would say "Ben Johnson." It is a lingering memory of his great spirit.”

“The philosopher Berkley claimed that everything in the universeexists solely as a thought in the mind of God. In response to thisSamuel Johnson is supposed to have kicked a stone and said, "I refusehim thus!" Nowhere is it written that Johnson stubbed his toe when he kickedthat stone. But he probably did and it probably hurt.”

“Johnson's later life, from 1763, is among the best documented of all literary lives. James Boswell gave himself the enormous task, after Johnson's death in 1784, of producing what is now held to be a model of biography; rich in detail and anecdote, a complete picture of the man and his times, traced over a period of more than twenty years. Boswell's Life of Johnson, published in 1791, carries on Johnson's own contribution to the growing art of biography, and consolidates Johnson's position as a major literary figure, who, although a poet and a novelist, is remembered more for his academic and critical achievement than for his creative writings.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.”

“You don't get the good shots sitting on your ass in the bad weather- Mark Johnson”