Terry Kitchen asked me one time why, since I had so few gifts as a husband and father, I had gotten married. And I heard myself say: "That's the way the post-war movie goes.

That is the first thing I know for sure: (1.) If the questions don't make sense, neither will the answers.

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

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.

One thing in the Middlewest: If you're in my business you're aware of the low opinion both coasts have of the midlands. And that is quite mistaken. New York would be a Kokomo if it weren't for Middlewesterners coming there.

The trouble with being a secular humanist is that we don't have a congregation. We don't meet so it's a very flimsy tribe, but there's a wonderful quotation from Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Something perfectly is going on. I do not doubt it, but the explanations I hear do not satisfy me.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.