“Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.”

The unicorn is a mythical beast.

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.

The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

Americans want to go to heaven without dying.

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.

If you wonder which is the stronger sex, watch which one twists the other around her little finger.

I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing’s fun. You’re getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

For one thing, she pronounced flowers ‘flars’ and I couldn’t let it slide.

Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.

I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart.

I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope it may do some good.

Character is not something we inherit. Character is something we have to wake up and build.

We can believe in the future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in balance.

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.

Every human being was born with an inherent gift, and that gift is their gift to humanity; they are supposed to serve humanity in the area of their gifting.

Friendships are the family we make – not the one we inherit. I’ve always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes we can be strangers to ourselves.

Indeed, the hereditary gift of prophecy will go to the grave with me.

What India needs is ease of doing business and inherent faith in the ability of Indians to catch an opportunity.