My hunch is that pop culture began to stagnate the moment Americans started to love the past more than they did the future.

Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from - dare I say it - God.

You know, I used to warm the thermometer on the light bulb... I was really good at being sick. I could forge my mother's signature on a sick note so well I was hardly ever at school.

Stationery is addictive. I get mine made in Paris at Benetton, and writing on it gives me a strange thrill.

Many men think they're playboys but they invariably land wide of the mark. Surrounding yourself with champagne, fast friends and paid escorts is the very definition of the word 'loser'.

Water-boarding can result in damage to the lungs and the brain, as well as long-term psychological trauma.

I think the absence of socks on men wearing suits and brogues is a problem. They'll live to regret that.

As you get older and fatter, good clothes can hide a lot.

In less than a year, the Bush administration will strut out of office, leaving the country in roughly the same condition a toddler leaves a diaper.

Life is all about seating and lighting.

I might wear a dinner jacket once a year to our Oscar party - that's a big thing - but I don't go to parties. I'm social but I'm not a socialite person.

I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.

Diversity of thought is in demand, for boosting collective creativity and harnessing collective wisdom.

Better to learn wisdom from other people's misfortunes than from your own.

American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace.

You said love, I say chemical imbalance.

Our sense of worth, of well-being, even our sanity depends upon our remembering. But, alas, our sense of worth, our well-being, our sanity also depend upon our forgetting.

The most ethical diet just so happens to be the most environmentally sound diet and just so happens to be the healthiest.

That's what you want: you want projects that you fall in love with. I don't think you pick your projects; you fall in love with them.

HOW LONG??? No rules on time .. the more aligned you are with positive feelings the quicker things happen.

I tend to turn down books originally published as e-books. As for selling books directly to e-book publishers, I would do so only if all traditional publishers had turned them down.