I realize more and more how instinctively pessimistic I am of all human kindness -- since I am always so bowled over by it -- and am never surprised by injustice, malice or personal attack.

The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy.

Hold fast to whatever fragments of love that exist, for sometimes a mosaic is more beautiful than an unbroken pattern.

Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.

All Americans come from Ohio originally, if only briefly.

A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind.

I cannot exist without the oxygen of laughter.

Yet better for one of my nature to have it that way than to have life a peaceful, placid flow of quiet contentment. I must have days of rushing excitement.

Joe and Jojo and I had lovely day together. I love Joe so much - more and more.

A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

A writer's business is minding other people's business ... all the vices of the village gossip are the virtues of the writer.

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself.

Agassiz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of Origin of Species. He says it is POOR-VERY POOR!!. The fact is, he is very much annoyed by it.

National Geographic contacted me about getting on their label, and I was like, 'Wow, I want to be label mates with the sharks and lemurs!'

And there we all were, as invisible as you could wish to see.

A good teammate is someone willing to get outside of personal thoughts and emotions, a friend who tries to understand, appreciate, and encourage other members of the team.

Half of life is up - the other half is dealing with it.

Generally my songs are just some riffs slung together as an excuse for a guitar solo.

O freedom, first delight of human kind!