Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.

I might become an ascetic, live in India. A little rice is about the best I can do now.

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

The war against terror is like a war against dandruff. It's a metaphor. It's not about anything.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching television, movies. They are used to getting things through the eye and the ear. In a small way, literature goes on being written, but few people like it. Once it's bureaucratized by the schoolteachers, the game's up.

We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.