If the guidebook used to be critical, today it seems largely a celebratory adjunct to the publicity operations of hotels, resorts, and even countries.

Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it.

Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.

i find nothing more depressing than optimism.

A more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class.

Anybody who notices unpleasant facts in the have-a-nice-day world we live in is going to be designated a curmudgeon.

If we do not redefine manhood, war is inevitable.

Anyone telling about his travels must be a liar, . . . for if a traveler doesn't visit his narrative with the spirit and techniques of fiction, no one will want to hear it.

Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and it's fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment.

She did not have time to wonder about his being late. He died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood out in front of the hardware store... He had not even had time to get into the store...

I love children. Eating them, that is.

With strong self-esteem you can climb any mountain and weather any storm.

There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

We knew we loved making cookies and every time we did, we made people happy. That was our business plan.

I try not to take for granted how lucky we are to have life and breath and opportunity. Once we've got that, we can conquer anything.

Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

I hardly can sleep. I feel that my target now is really to save Mother Earth for humanity. And it's doable.

He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.

It’s hard to think of another field in which experience is considered a liability and those who know the least about the nuts and bolts of an enterprise are embraced as experts.