Well, it's an ancestral tribe. These were immigrants from north of Germany who came here about the time of the Civil War, but anyway, these people called themselves free thinkers. They were impressed, incidentally, by Darwin. They're called Humanists now; people who aren't so sure that the Bible is the Word of God.

How complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

A lack of seriousness has led to all sorts of wonderful insights.

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.

Here is a les­son in writ­ing. First rule: Do not use semi­colons. They are trans­ves­tite her­maph­ro­dites rep­re­sent­ing absolutely noth­ing. All they do is show you've been to col­lege.

Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines.

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.