Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all.

When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.

It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet.

I can't fix the world. If you want to make a difference in life, you have to direct your energies in a focused way.

But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.

When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied . "It's so seldom I have one.

I was heading to Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to say too often if you can possibly help it.