Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

All living things on earth are kindred.

A good writer must have more than vin rosé in his veins, use more than Chablis for ink.

To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?

I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.

My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.