Lexicography is a chastening as well as an illuminating and fascinating art.

The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.

To finish is both a relief and a release from an extraordinarily pleasant prison.

American English is the greatest influence of English everywhere.

Vulgarity finds its antidote; old crudities become softened with time. Distinctions, both those that are useful and those that are burdensome, flourish and die, reflourish and die again.

Computer users soon learn that the miraculous powers of personal computers are based on avoidance of error.

There are only two ways to solve a problem: stop dwelling, and start doing.

If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.

We're out there somewhere between the known and the unknown, trying to reel in both for a closer look.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.

It was not until I got my first job, at the University of Washington in Seattle, and began playing chess with Don Gordon, a brilliant young theorist, that I learned economic theory.

I never thought my face would be on the cover of a Red Bull Six Pack.

[Slogan of her 'Trouble Bureau' for needy artists and musicians:] Happiness is a change of trouble.

I always wanted to make aliens that looked like '60s aliens.

In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle.

Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.