The people I know who swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies.

Nature admits no hierarchy of beauty or usefulness or importance.

People still don't get how astounding Darwinism is. People think what shocked everybody was that Charles Darwin seemed to be saying we had descended from apes.

I'm a bit of a coward, and lazy, oddly enough.

...as absurd and dishonest as claiming that the trouble with computer games is that they stop people watching television.

I was at a dinner party many years ago,sitting along from Tom Stoppard, who in those days smoked not just between courses,but between mouthfuls. An American woman watched in disbelief. "And you so intelligent!" "Excuse me?" said tom "Knowing those things are going to kill you" she said "and still you do it." "How differently I might behave" Tom said, "if immortality were an option

If you know someone who's depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn't a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.