The practice of diplomacy, I have found, is sometimes like eating soup with a fork: much activity yielding little nourishment.

Other people's risks are statistical. When it's your risk, your own child, it isn't statistical anymore.

Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic.

The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

I think... girls have a hard time being interesting. It’s actually easier to be famous, or notorious, than it is to be interesting. In our world, girls climb very well until they hit puberty-sexual maturity-and then they begin to fall out of the tree. They start role-playing instead of thinking, flirting instead of learning. They start admiring how smart the boys are-or how athletic or how handsome-instead of concentrating on their own intelligence.

The practice of diplomacy, I have found, is sometimes like eating soup with a fork: much activity yielding little nourishment.