An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again.

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

It's my belief that sanity lies in realizing that reality is not exactly what we had in mind.

Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

People don't necessarily want or need to be done unto as you would have them do unto you. They want to be done unto as they want to be done unto.

Ham's substantial, ham is fat. Ham is firm and sound. Ham's what God was getting at When He made pigs so round.

Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.

The legendary yet factual Curtis Wilkie has been the right man in the right place at an uncanny number of extraordinary times.

The first time I walked into a library, I got so excited I almost wet my pants.

I prefer my oysters fried; that way I know my oysters died.

The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs'.

There's an old saying about those who cannot remember the past being condemned to repeat it. But those of us who refuse to forget the past are condemned to relive it.

You can't change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.

Everything starts with faith. Faith causes us to see good things in the future, and because of this we develop a vision of success and prosperity in life.

If you do something really cognitively demanding, like buying furniture, it turns out buying furniture is one of the most difficult things we do. Go into a furniture store and look at a sofa.

Computer science really involves the same mindset, particularly artificial intelligence.

Besides, life isn't meant to be safe. It's only in our mistakes, our errors, and our faults that we grow and truly live.

Don't push your weaknesses, play with your strengths

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.

My whole life has been dedicated to public service.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.