Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are.

No art is possible without a dance with death.

It is always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

What geography can give all Middle Westerners, along with the fresh water and topsoil, if they let it, is awe for an Edenic continent stretching forever in all directions. Makes you religious. Takes your breath away.

How’s the patient?” asked Derby. “Dead to the world.” “But not actually dead.” “No.” “How nice - to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.