On bad days you wonder, ‘Why not just back off from the war and lead a quiet metalife?

Nothing attunes you to the beauty of the quotidian like a man who decides not to kill you after all

A book can’t be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant

The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.

Power and moneyLike Pooh Bear and honeyStick fast.

Not a clue – and, no, I don’t touch drugs. The world’s unstable enough without scrambling your brain for kicks.

Nonfiction that smells like fiction is neither.

Books’ll be back, ” Esther-in-Unalaq predicts. “Wait till the power grids start failing in the 2030s and the datavats get erased. It’s not far away. The future looks a lot like the past.

The Future, ” says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. “Coming soon, to a Present near you.

Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better.

Here’s the truth: Who is spared love is spared grief.

Eres mío para jugar contigo a mi antojo

You learn almost as much about a thinker from what he reads—in particular, what he likes and what he disdains—as from what he writes himself.

...there is so much beauty in the trying, and in the failing, and in the trying again.

See men for miles around give nature what she needs, rivers and rivers and rivers of it. You exhale with perfecthappiness. Nature turned you down in high school. Now you can come in her eye.

Frankly speaking, I'm not afraid of death. I don't endeavour to avert its advent. But I don't want to be a witness of it.

President Obama is in China. Also in China is evil Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. They're both in China at the same time. It's like running into your ex-girlfriend on vacation.

As a philosopher, I'm not obliged to explore every unknown wilderness.

It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up.

I'm interested in youth culture and popular culture.

Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.