I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

This is Sunday, and the question arises, what'll I start tomorrow?

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

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

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Science is magic that works.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

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.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.