They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference.

In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.

Often expecting immediate returns for goodness in this world is a sign of a normal human being

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

I defuse everything I can with it. Humor is such a great shield.

Sometimes I could almost hate you because you don't understand how much you mean to me, how dark and empty I was before. Solnyshko moyo.

Nothing is more real than the masks we make to show each other who we are.

I tell you, revenge plays a big part in momentum down here.

I look on life as a joyous adventure.

The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

I was always totally convinced that three weeks after the revolution they'd put me up against the wall and shoot me.

Yeah, I know I'm ugly... I said to a bartender, 'Make me a zombie.' He said 'God beat me to it.'