“The body is forever teaching us lessons. There are all sorts of things that we can’t do, shouldn’t do, had better not do very often or do for too long as we get older. The body makes its presence known.”

If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama.

I rarely meet a politician that I don’t like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Everybody in the Middle East wants to explain why they’re right.

Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.

There is no horizon in Toledo. There are too many trees.

It’s better to make fun of yourself because you’ve always got someone around to make fun of, and they can’t sue you.

I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.

There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.

Never wear anything that panics the cat.

I come from Toledo, Ohio, a town that has been hurt badly by the shift of the automobile business towards Japan. And yet I remember how the car workers lived in the neighborhood that I grew up in. My father was a car salesman, and I remember how we lived. I remember how modestly we lived.

A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.

Globalization is simply opening the free marketplace to encompass the entire world.

The best and brightest don’t go into politics. The best and brightest are at Goldman Sachs.

The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.

Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

“Toward what end, toward what end?”- but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.

When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.