There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." It's funny.

The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious.

Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.

Understanding breeds empathy.

Three kinds of people achieve illumination: those who learn, those who teach, and those who do both continuously.

The sound we hear when it snows is the soft song of the white beauty!

Stories are like children. They grow in their own way.

You can’t separate desperate politicians from violence and trouble.

Methodical thinking is of more use in Chess than inspiration

It's one of the reasons [professional politicians] why people's confidence in the electoral system has declined so much. They have all become shadowy political creatures

I am still fairly new to the whole social media thing - I am definitely tweeting and Facebooking. It's a nice way to connect with fans.

I talk about things like how to lose without losing identity. All loss and grief feels like when you transition.

I represent Staten Island and Brooklyn, and not just that the financial services industry is important to the U.S., but is disproportionately important to New York City.