Ability is a wonderful thing, but its value is greatly enhanced by dependability. Ability implies repeatability and accountability.

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.

Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime.

The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run, these are the only people who count.