There are lots of things worth doing that are no way to make a living. They are agreeable ways to make a more agreeable life.

Never have I risked my life, or even my comfort, in the service of mankind. Shame on me.

You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.

I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

In 1844, Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." He said this at a time when opium and opium derivatives were the only painkillers. And he said it helped a little. He might as well have said, "Religion is the aspirin of the people."

That’s the attractive thing about war,” said Rosewater. “Absolutely everybody gets a little something.

. . . hummings and clickings could be heard-the sounds attendant to the flow of electrons, now augmenting one maze of electromagnetic crises to a condition that was translatable from electrical qualities and quantities to a high grade of truth.