If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.

I'm mad about being old and I'm mad about being American. Apart from that, OK.

I think... it is somehow very useful, and maybe even essential, for a fine artist to have to somehow make his peace on the canvas with all the things he cannot do. That is what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call 'personality,' or maybe even 'pain.'

He couldn't tell the difference between one politician and another. They were all formlessly enthusiastic chimpanzees to him.

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful.

I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better.