There are a number of people without whom I could not have written this book, but I hope you don't hold that against them. They are all fine people, and they had no idea how it would turn out.

You should definitely visit the Louvre, a world-famous art museum where you can view, at close range, the backs of thousands of other tourists trying to see the Mona Lisa.

Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling.

It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person's plate.

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.

Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once.

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

Change, it seems, is inevitable. And so is compromise.

There are some wounds unreachable by words, some sins immune to apology.

The fire in you burns as fiercely as it did when I first met you.

I want to help give people the ability to stop and take just a few minutes a day to regroup and refocus: to give them a chance to get perspective on the things that matter and the things that don't.

Once I have a vision of something I want to accomplish, I tend to slog doggedly toward my goal until I achieve it; this is a skill from my youth.

If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet.

We need to care enough to connect, to put ourselves at emotional risk and play one note worth hearing.

In 2002, in this country, there was an observation that for the first time in America, more kids were actively pursuing skateboarding than baseball.

In the life of one man, never The same time returns.

I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.