Mankind is divided into two basic sorts: those who find the unknown future threatening ... and those who find it thrilling. The rupture between those two sides has been responsible for most of the bloodshed in history.

A beginning is the end of something, always.

To be human : to strive in the face of the certainty of failure.

If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron.

In 1971, after seven years in college, with that magic piece of paper clutched triumphantly in my fist, the best job I was able to get was night watchman on a sewer project in Babylon, N.Y. guarding a hole in the ground to prevent anyone from stealing it. God bless the American educational system!

Anger is always - always - fear in disguise.

The whole world turns upside down in ten years, but you turn upside down with it.