Alaska is our biggest, buggiest, boggiest state. Texas remains our largest unfrozen state. But mountainous Utah, if ironed out flat, would take up more space on a map than either.

It may be true that there are no atheists in foxholes. But you don't find many Christians there, either. Or, about as many of one as the other.

Music clouds the intellect but clarifies the heart.

The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.

As Mark Twain said, 'I love Wagner -- if only they'd cut out all that damned singing!'

A crude meal, no doubt, but the best of all sauces is hunger.

I'm happy to respect authority when it's genuine authority, based on moral or intellectual or even technical superiority. I'm eager to follow a hero if we can find one. But I tend to resist or evade any kind of authority based merely on the power to coerce. Government, for example. The Army tried to train us to salute the uniform, not the man. Failed. I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore.