“By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.”

Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there.

It’s an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured.

The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.

They didn’t want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.

Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it’s supposed to do.

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

My feeling about work is it’s much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.

I love what I do so I find ways to keep doing what I love. Music is certainly not all that interests me.

When I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I’m gonna do 320, that’s 160 days.

Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?

While making art you should just do what is in your heart.

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.

What he does with it, that’s something else, but he’s got it all. The talent, the instrument is there, that’s why he has endured.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.