Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Christmas tree stands are the work of the devil and they want you dead.

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.

The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose

Beulah has a husband?' I know. It's a miracle. There can't be more than two people on the planet who'd be willing to sleep with her, and here we are both in the same town.

I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.

Traveling makes you realize what an immeasurably nice place much of America could be if only people possessed the same instinct for preservation as they do in Europe.