Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.

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

Physicists are atoms' way of thinking about atoms.

A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world.

Taxonomy is described sometimes as a science and sometimes as an art, but really it’s a battleground.

I refer of course to the soaring wonder of the age known as the Eiffel Tower. Never in history has a structure been more technologically advanced, materially obsolescent, and gloriously pointless all at the same time.

Traveling is more fun - hell, life is more fun - if you can treat it as a series of impulses.