Had my own car at twelve years old. Left school in the tenth grade. Married when I was sixteen. Ain't hard to figure out; I was a man at a very young age.

Had no excuses for the things that we'd done, we were brave, we crazy, we were mostly young.

Had not a conviction of the danger to which an unlimited occupation of the executive chair would expose the republican Constitution of our Government, made it conscientiously a duty to retire when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard and of being insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to remain.

Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint.

Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state.

Had pretended to be Abbadon of the Dark, when always he had been working for the Light.

Had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.

Had reason ever created a poem, or a symphony, or a painting? If rationality can't see things like the secret commonwealth, it's because rationality's vision is limited. The secret commonwealth is there. We can't see it with rationality any more than we can weigh something with a microscope: it's the wrong sort of instrument. We need to imagine as well as measure .

Had she been an old woman who long ago in her youth sang beautifully, one might have said that she had learned to use the diminished nature of her voice to maximum effect, that it was a lesson in how to live with damage, how to make peace with it and use it for what it can do. But she was not an old woman.

Had she been at all used to blushing, she would have blushed, but she wasn't, so she didn't.

Had she been born 500 years sooner, Raphael would have chosen her as a model for his cherubs. Tendrils of bright red hair framed her face, a spray of freckles powdered her nose, and she was as plump as a perfectly ripened peach. Raphael probably would have painted out the freckles, and that would have been a mistake. Like brushing cinnamon off cinnamon toast.

Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?

Had she presumed in coming -- anticipated the guidance of Providence, and was she therefore now where she had no right to be? She could not tell; but, anyhow, here she was, and no one could be anywhere without the fact involving its own duty. Even if she had put herself there, and was to blame for being there, that did not free her from the obligations of the position, and she was willing to do whatever should _now_ be given her to do. God was not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon her, and either give her work here, where she found herself, or send her elsewhere. I need not say that thinking was not all her care; for she thought in the presence of Him who, because he is always setting our wrong things right, is called God our Saviour.

Had someone from Serbia flown a 'Greater Serbia' flag in Tirana or Pristina, it would become an issue for the U.N. Security Council.

Had the Bible been in clear straightforward language, had the ambiguities and contradictions been edited out, and had the language been constantly modernised to accord with contemporary taste it would almost certainly have been, or become, a work of lesser influence.

Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has -- you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.

Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented. Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.

Had the United States and the United Kingdom gone on alone to capture Baghdad, under the provisions of the Geneva and Hague conventions we would have been considered occupying powers and therefore would have been responsible for all the costs of maintaining or restoring government, education and other services for the people of Iraq.