In retrospect Hank I don't know why I spent four years writing this book when I could have just made a hit sing-a-ma-jig album.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater.

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

A taste so profound and complex that it can't even be compared to other tastes, only to emotions. Cheesy waffles, I was thinking, tastes like love without the fear of love's dissolution.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

Pleasure feels better than pain. Make the pursuit of pleasure your guide.

The will is the spirit of perseverance, and perseverance holds clear success.

I would define morality as enlightened self-interest...That old Platonic ideal that there are certain pure moral forms just isn't where we are.

One can understand a person by the way he removes his wallet and puts his hand to take out money.

Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval.

The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.

The first year we actually did a lot of night shooting and the writers weren't even allowed on location.

When you do 10 interviews in one day, and 10 different sources want to talk to you, that means you're doing good. I think about that every day.

Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.

One man with a genuine experience with God is worth more than a library full of arguments.