We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.

...whatever God found worth creating we can find worth studying.

When all is lost, there is still a memory.

Before I became a fighter pilot, everyone said that women didn't have the physical strength. Well, I had just completed the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon.

I just think we live in a world where people are so excited about the hot new thing, but you can't necessarily tell a story in one movie. With this platform, we can really dive deep and go for it.

Gastronomy is the greatest form of therapy that anyone can be exposed to.

If a religious person says "No, no, no" and they won't listen to science, it makes me think that they don't have faith in their own religion.

What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one's gifts?

I wanted so much to write that I couldn't write a word.