My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry.

You don't have to know anything about baseball to respond to Babe Ruth because he's just this magnificent human being. And a really good story because he was this kid who grew up essentially as an orphan, you know, had a tough life, and then he became the most successful baseball player ever. But he was also a really good guy.

I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.

I tell the kids that, even in a childhood marked by despair and deprivation, I knew that no matter what happened, I still had my family, or at least the remnants of a family ripped apart by divorce and then glued back together in various odd arrangements through a series of ill- advised remarriages. It was good to know I had a solid foundation.

What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, earnestly studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit.

Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.

The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn’t get much better than this.