I think it's both annoying and beneficial that there's so much freedom online.

A handkerchief can never be put in another pocket after it has been in one pocket. I don't walk under ladders. I have items of clothing that are lucky for me. That rotates, but I am luck-oriented.

Clearly, there has been a lack of imagination about how much can go wrong.

If you're someone people count on, particularly in difficult moments, that's a sign of a life lived honorably.

I have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.

Here’s the thing about rights. They’re not actually supposed to be voted on. That’s why they’re called rights.

I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.

Hopefully life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come. Do stuff you will want to brag about.

I really believe in trying to increase the amount of useful information in the world and in being accurate in the sense that you can take what I say to the bank, even if you disagree with me.

Bernie Sanders are the only person who talks about the kinds of things that might be driving people to support Donald Trump in such large numbers in the Republican Party.

Activism is setting a goal of something you would like to be different, and figuring out what would have to change to achieve that goal. It's sort of like math.

I don't want to be here when my latest work of accidental art is discovered.

I love films. I love music. I love poetry and stories. All of that I feel… I sort of get very excited and fed by.

One has to adopt a sort of Zen calm, in which you know you wrote the best book that you could at the time.

It's very easy to turn a toy into an adult toy: Location, location, location.

I think the most important manner is just general kindness. When you go to big cities, sometimes people forget to just say, "Good morning," or "How are you?"

Treat [the people] as slaves, guard them against brigands, and they will come to regard themselves as slaves and brigands.

How could I say that I wished to penetrate the secrets of the mountains in search of something still unknown that, like the yeti, might well be missed for the very fact of searching?

If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity.

Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space.

Because thought has by now been perverted into the solving of assigned problems, even what is not assigned is processed like a problem.