There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe?

No one dies of nausea, but it can seriously sap the will to live.

Effort is the foundation of all achievements and is the single greatest competitive advantage and quality you must consistently apply to achieve your dreams.

Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark.

A diplomat who says “yes” means “maybe", a diplomat who says “maybe" means “no”, and a diplomat who says “no” is no diplomat.

Just when we thought everything was going to be okay, we all fell apart.

As it turned out, my greatest fear in life had become expectations.

No one is entirely useless. Even the worst of us can serve as horrible examples.

Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.

Shakespeare alternated between musical surrenders to social prestige and magnificent fits of poetic remorse.

Geniuses never pay attention.

Of course they had more chains on him than Scrooge saw on Marley's ghost, but he could have kicked up dickens if he'd wanted. That's a pun, son.