"I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on."

"No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary."

"There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look."

"You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food."

"I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?"

"Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?"

"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones."

"Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."

"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead."

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'."

"I wanted all things To seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, Instead of tense. And I made up lies So that they all fit nice, And I made this sad world A par-a-dise."

"And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you."

"Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?"

"If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'."

"All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist."

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before."

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

"There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."

"Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber."

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."

"When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."

"If you can do no good, at least do no harm."

"A sane person to an insane society must appear insane."

"All this happened, more or less."