As the most social apes, we inhabit a mirror-world in which every important relationship, whether with spouse, friend or child, shapes the brain, which in turn shapes our relationships.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains...

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they are color and clarify everything, they can stain the mind or warp the feelings.

The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves.

We live on the leash of our senses. There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.

I don't know why I can't let the insults go, but I can't. I'm the product of every hurt that's ever been laid on me.

People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.

The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.

All originality and no plagiarism makes for dull preaching.

If you're constantly stepping outside of the character and judging them, you'll never really be able to fully engage because you'll always be slightly cynical.

What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?

The fact is that some of the mice [tested on with AZT] have contracted cancer. It attacks bone marrow. It is very toxic.

And with his arms crossed he looks pityingly down from his spiritual height on everything that anyone says.

I need to be frightened of things. I hate it, but I must need it, because it's what I do.