I never can stand seeing people pleased with themselves,” said Joanna. “It arouses all my worst instincts.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

Very few of us are what we seem.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

Fear is incomplete knowledge.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

And yet we knew, for a certainty, that when first emissaries of Earth went walking among the planets, Earth's other sons would be dreaming not about such expeditions but about a piece of bread.

If the caged birds think whoever scattering grains for them that person is their deity, what should we Kurds call the person who will grantee us an independence.

You are nothing but what you think. That is existentialism.

I don't think I'm a good ol' boy. Honestly, the last thing I am is a redneck. I like silk sheets, fancy cars, beautiful women, good whiskey.

I just have beautiful memories of what has happened in my life.

My days are whatever I want them to be. I don't have to go worry about chasing some chemical to make me feel OK for a minute, and then make me feel worse.

We do not die with those we mourn.

Make us your slaves, but feed us.

Within the stability of a family struggle, when there's less chaos, you can have the most soul-searching and the most digging to find out what and who you really are.

I'm motivated by solving new and challenging problems, especially ones that people say can't or shouldn't be tackled.