[On STDs] This be Nature’s way of recommending monogamy.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

I think it's likely that the civilizing effect of literature has done most of the work, and still continues to do. Look at Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. It proves beyond any shadow of doubt that violence has declined dramatically throughout the centuries. There are various reasons for it: the rise of the state, Leviathan, the monopoly of violence, children's rights, animal rights. They're all positive signs.

At its grandest, political correctness is an attempt to accelerate evolution.

Laughter always forgives.

The future could go this way, that way. The future's futures have never looked so rocky. Don't put money on it. Take my advice and stick to the present. It's the real stuff, the only stuff, it's all there is, the present, the panting present.

If you want to know the real meaning of pornography, it is the utter dissociation of love and sex, the banishment of love from the sexual arena.