People like to feel entitled, whether they're actually entitled or not.

Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of the most popular performers of his time. It is so unusual, and so psychologically unlikely, too, for a great writer to be a great performer, too.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be the same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC.

Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.

My God, the religious right will not acknowledge what a merciful person Jesus was.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.