"The great omission in American life is solitude. . . that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incinerator of the spirit."

"Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right."

"Passion is the source of our finest moments, the joy of love, the clarity of hatred, and the ectasy of grief."

"Many people say that they love the winter, but what they really love is feeling proof against it."

"Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place."

"FORGETFULNESS, n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation for their destitution of conscience."

"Love is what we call the situation which occurs when two people who are sexually comptatible discover that they can also tolerate one another in various other circumstances."

"Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."

"There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough."