For a deed to be totally pure, it must be done without any thought of reward, whether worldly or divine.

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.

The eagle may soar; beavers build dams.

The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have.

The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.

Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth.

Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem.

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.

Now that women are jockeys, baseball umpires, atomic scientists, and business executives, maybe someday they can master parallel parking.

The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia.

I think writers can respond by writing about the refugee crisis, by looking at problems faced by migrants, by trying hard to portray them as the human beings that they are.

There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.

What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who's going to do what and how we're going to achieve the generic goals on the list.

I am convinced of the validity of contradiction. There are many worlds. Each is true, at its time, in its own fashion

Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.

Love came when you weren't looking, except in the case of millions who found mates on Match.com, but, hey. It sounded good.

But if I lost you, it would devastate me as nothing else has or ever could. You have so much power over me and that’s frightening.

I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.

Anticipation of pleasure is a pleasure in itself.