I spent my first 50 years trying to become known as a writer and the next 30 trying to avoid being famous. I walk down the street or go to a football game and people shout, 'Hey Andy'. I hate that.

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

Being kind is more important than being right.

I just wish we knew a little less about his urethra and a little more about his arms sales to Iran.

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated.

People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.

He wondered about himself (whether he was broken, or special, or better, or worse) and about other people (whether they were really all as stupid as they seemed).

It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, "Great, I get to remake my song."

I think I'm like a free spirit.

It's really important how you say things because people won't necessarily remember what words you used but they'll remember how you made them feel.

I tend to read non-fiction.

Members of al Qaeda and other affiliated organizations spent a great deal of time blending into the populations of several nations around the world and exploring all aspects of life there.

On our current path, all our great Gulf and Atlantic coast cities are at risk of meeting the same fate as New Orleans.

Sermons seldom convert sinners; they sometimes goad them into more sin.

A few times in my life I've had moments of clarity where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think.

There is no intimacy like that between two women who have chosen to be sisters.