Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)

Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito.

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.

What kind of life can you have in a house without books?

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.

If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.

Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.

It is always worth itemising happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers for happiness while you can.

Destiny and fate are of one’s own making, and riches and happiness are rarely found at the end of an easily-traversed path.

We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy.

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.

And if there's love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet.

How many words a day do I write? Between six and seven thousand. And how many hours does that take? Three on a good day, as high as thirteen on a bad one

The mountains were there and so was I.

The older I get, the older old is.

By a twist of fate rather than anything approaching journalistic enterprise, I did the last major interview with Johnny Carson.

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!