Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about.

Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay professors to get them read and talked about.

I've wrecked and ravaged half my life in the pursuit of women, and I suffer the pangs of about seventeen regrets -- the seventeen who got away.

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

A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.

Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.