I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Get your facts straight, and then you can distort them as much as you like.

Like true philosophers I've come to believe that religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown after proper education.

People loved you in the way they knew how - and often it was not the way you knew. Or needed.

He needed fresh air and sunshine. A walk in the woods and afterward a good book to read by the fire. Yeah, that was the life.

Cops before breakfast.Before coffee even. As if Mondays weren't bad enough.

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity

Rachel delivered it like an official pronouncement. Like she was one of the fairies gifting Sleeping Beauty's christening: Beauty. Intelligence. Heterosexual.

To find them all in one package...well, perhaps better not to dwell on his package in my fragile state.

I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

The only thing worse than opera is someone who hums along with opera.

I don't know if real courage lies in storming barricades or simply not denying the truth.

It is true to say that the secret of a winning formula is the ability to accept that there is a vast area of unexploited potential beyond what you currently perceive to be your maximum.

All nature wears one universal grin.

Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.

Emotions are enmeshed in the neural networks of reason.

And try to stay out of trouble with the ladies. Remember, they all have fathers and brothers and some of them have armies.

I can sing fine and I can play guitar fine, but put 'em together and it becomes a thoughtful effort.

They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.

Education is the sum total of one's experience, and the purpose of higher education is to widen our experiences beyond the circumscribed existence or our own daily lives.

Critics are notoriously liberal with their use of the term 'genius'.

On Bill Clinton: I have a simple question: Who's the last President to give you a balanced budget?