Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.

Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.

I remember laughing with relief that the same old adolescent boredom goes on from generation to generation. ...the words took me back to my own years of stagnancy, and that terrible waiting for life to begin. [p. 68]

The rainbow in place of the unicorn? Why didn't God just restore the unicorn? We animals would have been happier with that, instead of a big hint in the sky about God's magnanimity every time it stopped raining.

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.

Writers of either gender ought to be able to do the opposite sex-that's one basic test of competence, after all.