Home is the first refuge from - and last defense against - the disappointments and the terrors of life.

The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.

The whisper of the dusk is night shedding its husk.

Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake.

Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.

Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded.

Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along.

The hands of every clock are shears, trimming us away scrap by scrap, and every time piece with a digital readout blinks us towards implosion.

Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.

Any drunk who has tried to put his car where a lamppost stands is a self-educated physicist.

Given my heritage and the ordeal of my childhood, I sometimes wonder why I myself am not insane. Maybe I am.

Given my age, I am pretty near the end, probably, of my career as a writer, a scholar, a teacher. And I wanted to speak of things I will not be able to do.

...and what it all comes down to is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet.

Honestly, I don't go out of my way to see animated movies. I'm mostly influenced by.. the films I tend to like are the small films, small personal stories. With characters you can believe.

For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.

On a group of theories one can found a school; but on a group of values one can found a culture, a civilization, a new way of living together among men.

The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything.

I'm interested in having fun with ideas, throwing them up in the air like confetti and then running under them.

Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.