I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that...

I am eternally grateful.. for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've...

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

I can have oodles of charm when I want to.

Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to...

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.