The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War - when I really think about them, they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.

Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.

Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.

The modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top

My lips are chapped from the winds of change.

While I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The whole point of Louis Armstrong is that no one can really figure him out. There was a while where I thought you could try.

History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.

What are you hiding? No one ever asks that.

I no longer drink nearly as much as I used to but, still, my motto is Sine coffea nihil sum. Without coffee, I'm nothing.

You know, it's always good to have a synonym just for variety.

We are drowning in information but starving for knowledge and wisdom. Education ought to teach us not only how to make a living but also how to live.

Meditation is the conscious effort towards altering our subconscious mind

Dying for dark - the darker the worse. Strange.

He’d danced around that story about why he’d moved to Terrebonne more smoothly than an Olympic skater on ice.

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

To get people emotionally involved in something intellectual and political is important.

Any good Irwin can make going to the corner store for a candy bar and a Coke lood death defying and suicidal.

Nothing is more alluring to a man than a woman who looks good in her jeans.

Where politics is concerned, I think poets have to be pragmatists, philosophical pragmatists.