Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

A library is many things, but particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books... Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had.

You can dissect a joke just as you can a frog. But it tends to die on you.

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.