The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid.

It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.

I would have to say the novel 'War and Peace' influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered then to be the greatest of all endeavors.

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

One can reach the gates of hell just as easily by short steps as by large.

There are so many journalists out there, I hate to say it, who are lazy and don't do their research - and it shows.

Hubris and science are incompatible.