I became quietly seized with that nostalgia that overcomes you when you have reached the middle of your life and your father has recently died and it dawns on you that when he went he took some of you with him.

Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.

I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.

There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to split an infinitive, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that is the most pleasurable part of writing the science book.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.

It was an especially wonderful time to be a noisy moron.