“Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.”

In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.

Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.

Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.

My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores.

Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won’t feel like watching.

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.

I’ve done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.

All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.

Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.

I must take issue with the term ‘a mere child’, for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.

Scientists – the crowd that for dash and style make the general public look like the Bloomsbury set.

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

My favorite animal is steak.

Never relinquish clothing to a hotel valet without first specifically telling him that you want it back.

And then, just as Wilbur was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that had addressed him the night before. “Salutations!” said the voice. Wilbur jumped to his feet. “Salu-what?” he cried. “Salutations!” repeated the voice.

Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.

After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.

What’s important is to listen before you react.

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of.

A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind.

He means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow.