I suppose because I grew up a thousand miles from the sea and missed the great age of passenger liners, I have always been subject to a romantic longing for ocean travel.

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.

If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.

Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.

Long ago, I stopped buying- let alone reading, books that talk about organizational success but fail to emphasize the importance of TRUST

Change the status quo or become it

I've been polite and I've always shown up. Somebody asked me if I had any advice for young people entering the business. I said: "Yeah show up."

My father is a guy who will fight and he will fight for America and he's always fought for himself.

The best book of the year, Grobel's writing is quite marvelous. The Hustons reads vividly, just like one of John Huston's great films.

The greatest satisfaction is not the decoration. It is knowing that I am able to help someone who needs help.

A battle avoided cannot be lost.

The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well.

There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God.