I just think lots of words have physicality. How about the word 'wobble?' You think that's arbitrary? When you say the word 'wince,' you wince. How about that?

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

It's my belief that sanity lies in realizing that reality is not exactly what we had in mind.

Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

People don't necessarily want or need to be done unto as you would have them do unto you. They want to be done unto as they want to be done unto.

Ham's substantial, ham is fat. Ham is firm and sound. Ham's what God was getting at When He made pigs so round.

Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.

The legendary yet factual Curtis Wilkie has been the right man in the right place at an uncanny number of extraordinary times.

The first time I walked into a library, I got so excited I almost wet my pants.

I prefer my oysters fried; that way I know my oysters died.

The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs'.

It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.

Everything that happens, happens of necessity.

I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I'm still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life

For every winner, there's a loser. And that person didn't really need to lose. They just didn't understand the game plan.

Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.

There are no musically untalented people.

A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.

In all the affairs of this world, so much reputation is in reality so much power.

The truth is, every sport has been turned into a huge, nihilistic business.

Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.