Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.

I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream.

You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too.

Harry closed his eyes. He never wanted to open them again. His heart sent this message to his molecules: "For reasons obvious to all of us, this galaxy is dissolved!

A first grader should understand that her or his culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society...Cultural relativity is defensible, attractive. It's a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.

Well, it's practically over, thank God - I'm 83, there won't be that much more of it to put up with I don't think!