Jane Austen writes about these humdrum lives with such empathy that they seem endlessly fascinating

I was born too late for steam trains and a lazy eye meant I'd never be an astronaut.

It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't even about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world.

And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.

No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.

You love someone, you've got to let something go.

For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.

From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness.

A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.

I pride myself on making my own decisions, sir, " she said. "I do not welcome gentlemen making them for me.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details….

Let us dance as if life is a dance of our soul and spirit.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.

"Good enough never is" has become the motto of this company.

One thing is certain. At some point global investors will lose confidence in our (U.S.) easy dollars and debt-financed prosperity, and then the chickens will come home to roost.

The original settlers of Alaska apparently were Russian.

Bring me then the plant that points to those bright Lucidites swirling up from the earth, and life itself exhaling that central breath! Bring me the sunflower crazed with the love of light.

Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.