I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.

The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.

Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.

If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you’ve lived it twice.

Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it's proactive and there is positive intent behind it.

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.

Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.

The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you're seventeen you know everything. When you're twenty-seven if you still know everything you're still seventeen.

Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.

To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras.

I joined a small but growing post-Trotskyite Luxembourgist sect.

Parties that are majority parties are incoherent parties.

When I reached C Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning.

You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.

I don't have any hobbies. Music is my hobby.

Be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching you.

I wish we were alone,” he says. “I almost always wish that,” I say.