Truth is no rounder than a horse's eye.

All great discoveries...are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.

The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.

I saw how greatly he suffered the requirement of being clever. It separated him from his soul, and it didn't get him anything other than a living

People's position on immigration, once they get "sophisticated," and they rise to the higher levels of commentary or government, it's usually determined solely by economics. And not by anything else.

I suppose I could read more fiction, but I haven't moved in that direction. I'd like more time even though I spend six hours a day reading. People say their eyes get tired, but I've never experienced that. In college I used to read 10 hours a day. My wife says I'm obsessive compulsive. She might have a point because when I was an undergrad student we had the required reading list and the suggested reading list. I always read all the suggested reading too.

I made a boy's mistake, common enough, of thinking that real life was knowing many things and many people, living dangerously in faraway places, crossing the sea, or starting a power company on the Columbia River, a steamship line in Bolivia.