The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering-that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good.

In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.

There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot.

It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.

Speech sounds can be analyzed into fundamental units called phonemes; these move around like protozoa in a drop of water, and, like protozoa, join together and split up.

You fault me for having standards?' Sebastian countered icily.'Not at all. I fault you for having two sets of them.'~ Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent & Cam Rohan.

I don’t care too much about talking, but I don’t like being alone.

Every war is the war for whoever's lived through it.

And I've played piano since I was little, so I was originally the piano player in the band.

One has to live in Washington to know what a city of rumors it is.

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

No doubt there are people who are our guests [ in Oh, Hello] who are more famous, but to me, Mel Brooks is the most famous person. So that was really cool.

Followers of trails and of seasons, breakers of camp in the little dawn wind, seekers of watercourses over the wrinkled rind of the world, o seekers, o finders of reasons to be up and be gone.

Enthusiasm..the sustaining power of all great action

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.