It's a fool's life, a rogue's life, and a good life if you keep laughing all the way to the grave.

The tragic sense of life: our heroic acceptance of the suffering of others.

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

Paradise is the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless America, the Earth upon which we stand.

But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.

The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology -- the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.

Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)