To write a novel may be pure pleasure. To live a novel presents certain difficulties. As for reading a novel, I do my best to get out of it.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

The rules of physics are, in some cases, suspiciously anthropic.

Stress comes from fear of the unknown, so have faith and fear will disappear and stress will melt away.

I follow cool. When I went up to see Steve Jobs, I said, 'The party's at this guy's house.'

We Abolition Women are turning the world upside down.

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

The thesis that risk assessment itself is inherently risky is nowhere better borne out than in the area of high-consequence risks.

What we are seeking to do is not melt the map of America. We are seeking to melt the self, the solid form that we consider ourselves to be.

I've never gotten used to winter and never will.

I've always wanted to perform on the London stage.